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THE GREAT MAZE 
THE HEART OF YOUTH 



BY HERMANN HAGEDORN 

The Silver Blade. A one-act play in verse. Out of print. 

The Woman of Corinth. A tale in verse. Out of print. 

A Troop of the Guard and Other Poems. Out of print. 

Poems and Ballads. 

Paces in the Dawn. A novel. 

Makers of Madness. A war play. 

The Great Maze ; The Heart of Youth. A poem and a play. 




THE GREAT MAZE 

AND 

THE HEART OF YOUTH 

A POEM AND A PLAY 

By 

Hermann Hagedorn 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
1916 

All rights reserved 



4 A 

r V * So 



Copyright, 1915 and 1916, 
By HERMANN HAGEDORN. 



NortoooU Press 

J. S. Cushing Co. — Berwick & Smith Co. 

Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 




DC1.A427202 

"7*> ( ■ 



THE HILL SCHOOL 



Not with swords, not with guns, 

Mother of boys, you arm your sons. 

East and west, south and north, 

With a word in their ears, you send them forth 

With a word you gird their souls 

For storms and starry goals, 

And send them over the lands 

With a torch, a torch in their hands. 



Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2011 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/greatmazeheartofOOhage 



THE GREAT MAZE 



"Ten years of Troy have made my husband dumb," 

Said Clytaemnestra in her strong, slow voice, 

So full of melody you scarcely heard 

The sharp discordances of mockery 

That rang athwart it, cold as steel on stone. 

The banqueters looked up ; the table-talk 

Died in hushed whispers; one man choked and 

coughed, 
And one man laughed a drunken, quick, quenched 

laugh ; 
But Agamemnon slowly raised his head, 
And strangely dry and destitute of words, 
With grave brow and unhappy, homeless eyes, 
Gazed at his wife. The pale light on her lips 
Perished as though a wind had blown it out. 
But from the bright obscure of her profound, 
Illegible, black eyes, a sudden spark 

B I 



THE GREAT MAZE 

Leaped toward the strong man with the coward's 

heart, 
iEgisthus, where he sat among his friends 
And sipped diluted wine with restless mouth, 
Afraid to trust too much his runaway tongue. 
Over his face the phosphorescent flame 
Of fear flared, licked, and passing upward, died, 
Leaving his throat burning. His tongue was thick, 
His lips with sickening, sudden fever dry. 
He saw the eyes of Agamemnon turn 
And follow Clytaemnestra's flying glance ; 
He saw them rest and gaze into his own, 
With that slow fire that never flared nor roared, 
But with hot, searing patience crumbled walls 
And had burnt Troy at last with all its towers. 
The eyes burned into his, he felt them burn. 
Then when it seemed his desiccated soul 
Must at a breath crumble and be swept forth, 
Ashes and dust past Agamemnon's feet, 
The King's glance turned again to her he loved, 
A little puzzled by this war of eyes, 
But never doubting that in her due time 
She would resolve it all in quiet and peace. 
-^Egisthus flashed relief, and the Queen smiled 

2 



THE GREAT MAZE 

Faintly ; but in the delicate, curving lips 
Was something less than woman's tenderness 
For joy returned and ended widowhood. 
^Egisthus, wise through watching of her face, 
And learn'd, as never Agamemnon was, 
In the dark lore and cipher of the Queen's 
Shadows and shafts of light, laughed in his heart 
To read the scorn that hung upon her lips 
For this liege lord come home from war too late. 
He smiled. But Agamemnon saw the smile, 
And the smile died. 

A harp's first, tremulous chord 
Rose like cool waters through the sultry air, 
Splashing clear melody ; and where he crouched, 
Mysterious as a mountain or the sea 
Between the day and dark, a gaunt, old man 
Softly began to chant the siege of Troy. 
She listened, Clytaemnestra, smiling still. 
But Agamemnon felt no rapture wake 
His pulses as of old at the old song. 
The tale of hard-fought battles brought no thrill, 
No gust of pride the praise of his own name. 
Troy seemed a legend of a far, dead day, 
And he, its captor, dead and dust with Troy, 
3 



THE GREAT MAZE 

Removed by dimlit ages from this man 
Whom men called Agamemnon and who sat 
At supper in his palace by the sea, 
Watching perturbed his wife's perplexing face. 
His eyes sought Clytaemnestra's but his gaze 
Stood suppliant in vain at those dark doors. 
Once he had entered and been welcomed there 
To sunny chambers odorous with winds 
Murmuring garden-magic and sea-lore 
Through open casements. Dimly he recalled 
Lost tricks of her lost girlhood, April moods 
Of swanlike queenliness afloat on dreams, 
Deep words that sank in sparkling silences, 
And evanescent angers and sharp thrusts, 
Cruel, but for the swift, requiting lips. 
All that was dead as Troy. 

He looked at her. 
The swan had turned to stone, her very flesh 
Seemed hard as alabaster, her black hair 
Rigid as though a hand had hewn it out 
Of Stygian marble, hewing each smooth curl 
Too like the next to let it seem quite real. 
She sat and smiled, but Agamemnon read 
No weather-warning on the smooth, cold skies 
4 



THE GREAT MAZE 

Of her immobile face. It seemed to him 
That she was just a little bored, perhaps, 
By the old bard's long story. He remembered 
One banquet long ago when she had yawned, 
Hearing how Pelops ate his own two babes 
And was forever cursed with all his stem, 
Pelops, who was her great-grandfather-in-law, 
The family skeleton and horrible 
Example. He remembered, too, the scene 
After the banquet, how he scolded her, 
And she, quite heedless, let her black hair fall 
And combed it carefully and let him storm, 
Knowing apparently what hosts she had 
To take him captive when it suited her. 
She was more beautiful, he used to think, 
Than Helen herself, for Helen's radiance 
Was of the dawn, made garish by the day, 
But Clytaemnestra's was the loveliness 
Of falling dusk : first glamour, then low winds, 
The deepening heaven, the eager, virgin moon, 
And one by one the great and lesser stars 
Afloat on the wide silence of the night. 
The perilous bloom of Helen's dawn was over. 
Outside Troy's fallen walls he had seen her stand, 
5 



THE GREAT MAZE 

Unchanged in the perfection of each line, 

Still excellent, but with all magic fled. 

Her husband's house could safely take her back. 

For her no fleets would gather again like storms, 

No seas be whipped ; her beauty's fangs were drawn. 

He watched his wife who smiled and still could smile, 

Conscious of mystery where no mystery 

Had been in former times. The pitiless day 

Had overtaken Helen, the dark night 

Her sister Clytaemnestra. And the night 

Was full of shadows and amazing shapes 

And cold, white fogs. He watched her, suddenly 

caught 
By the new kindling of a passion he deemed 
Spent these unnumbered years. He thought he saw 
The Queen's smile warm into a woman's ere 
It suddenly expired and she arose 
And left the crowded hall. 

He followed her. 
The banqueters sprang up as they passed forth, 
Stretched in relief when they were safely gone, 
And slouching on the benches called anew 
For food and wine, and bade the bard sing on. 
^Egisthus only sat with worried eyes 
6 



THE GREAT MAZE 

Watching the Queen's white cat paw at the cup 
The Queen had left, half full. The beaker fell 
Clattering to the floor, spilling the wine, 
And the cat sniffed and lapped it up and licked 
Her cold gray lips and looked about the room 
With enigmatic eyes, and yawned and slept. 



II 

At Agamemnon's back the hangings closed. 
But his wife turned with lips of venom. "Why, 
Why do you follow me ? My ways are mine. 
Your ten gay, warring years have forfeited 
What right my husband had to slink by night 
After me down dark corridors. Go back ! 
There is your place, down there, with men! You 

like 
The company of men who fight and drink, 
And women who are ninnies, but have looks. 
Dear gods, you evidently do. You gave 
Ten years to them, ten years, your best ten years — 
And mine." 

Her voice was suddenly strangely soft ; 
With perilous overtones of mockery 
That seemed to lick like venomous, mute flames 
About the difficult words. With quiet scorn, 
So deeply purged by pain and heartsickness 
Of all ephemeral smallness as to seem 
Almost a holy mood, she turned from him. 
He said : "I do not plead with you. Your heart 
8 



THE GREAT MAZE 

Is strangely altered. Body and soul, indeed, 
Seem beyond comprehending changed, caught up 
In some gray vapor and borne far away 
From corridors and chambers that you loved 
And that were beautiful because of you." 
Harshly her voice broke in. "Yes, I have changed. 
Who would not change in ten years of slow 

death? 
You have not changed. No. You are quite the 
_ - same. 

You live by deeds, by what your arms and legs 
Can smite and fetch, by bodily delights 
Of food and battle and lust, by bright seen things 
And sharp things felt. No. Such men do not 

change. 
They grow in bulk ; whatever hair they keep 
Turns gray, the lines come on the brow, and lend 
False evidence of wisdom where none is. 
But in their inwardness they do not change. 
They have no serpent there." Again the tone 
Flame-licked and sibilant and venomous. 

But Agamemnon looked into her face, 

Half shrouded in the wan lamp's windy light. 

9 



THE GREAT MAZE 

"Your ways are yours, you say. Then mine are 

mine 
To judge and to repair. More than strong arms 
I gave to Troy's destruction. Let that pass. 
I have returned to you after these years 
Neither to judge nor be judged, but to live 
A little while in peace before I die 
With her I loved — ah, Clytaemnestra, look ! 
We are not children any more. Our lives 
Have passed the peak, and tread the downward 

slope. 
We have no time to quarrel. We must learn 
To hoard our days now, making golden piles 
For memory to live on. You are deep. 
I cannot fathom or pretend to pierce 
With my man's inexperience of souls 
That sea that is your spirit. Have I wronged you ? " 

"Wronged? Wronged?" She laughed, and Aga- 
memnon's heart 
Knew for the first time what it meant to fear. 
His blood grew cold with fierce, unreasoned fear. 
She did not laugh again, but when she spoke 
She spoke as a snake might speak to a trapped toad. 
10 



THE GREAT MAZE 

"Wronged? Wronged? You ask? You do not 

even know? 
The gods were kind to men, being men themselves, 
And made them horn. But women they made 

flesh 
To bleed and agonize and pant with pain. 
So it is ruled, it seems. Forgive. Your years 
Are more than mine, and sometimes I forget 
That though you are a wise man in your world, 
You are a very child in mine. You are. 
Great Agamemnon is a child and like 
A silly child he threw his life away 
To chase a light bird home to her old roost. 
What babes ! What babes you all were ! Did you 

wrong me ? 
I wonder sometimes are there any words 
Simple enough to bear to childlike minds 
Like yours, the intricate and subtle lore 
Of the soul's inward life ? I doubt it. Hands 
Bleed vainly, knocking, when the man within 
Is deaf or has a lady on his knee. 
Why should I waste my breath ?" 

Her voice was harsh ; 
And Agamemnon, staring out to sea 
n 



THE GREAT MAZE 

Through the wide window, watched the waves' white 

line 
Illumine the profundity of night 
An instant with bright, flameless radiance 
And perish in faint downfall of low waters 
And fainter grist of pebbles, ere he spoke. 
"Upbraid the gods who made me what I am. 
I am a man, and men's ways are my ways. 
I see no other. Yet if I have wronged you — 
Ah, Clytaemnestra, let no rough camp fault 
Impute to me an infidelity 
That was not in my heart. My body loved, 
Not I, Chryseis. And I put her by 
Long since." 

"When you were done with her ! Of course, 
You put her by. Why shouldn't you put her by 
When all the sheen was blown from her fair flesh, 
The mystery shattered, the adventure grown 
Dull and habitual as marriage, hate 
Uprisen where love was?" A sudden moan 
Died hissing in her teeth. 

"Forgive!" he cried. 
She shrugged her shoulder, saffron- veiled. " Oh, yes," 
She said a little wearily. "Why not? 
12 



THE GREAT MAZE 

If it will make you happy. I suppose 
When all the fun is over, it is pleasant 
To have your wife forgive and clean the slate 
For new delectable adventures. Yes. 
We will regard Chryseis as wiped out. 
What's the new name ? Cassandra?" 

He upraised 
His powerful eyes, and even in dim light 
She was aware of grandeur looking out. 
He said : "Not as my mistress did I bring 
Cassandra captive home, but as your slave. 
A great king's wisest daughter for your slave. 
What more could woman ask?" 

She laughed again, 
Softly, not scornfully, but with the tone 
Of pitiful despairing that must laugh 
To save itself from overmastering tears. 
" What more ? " she cried. " I wonder ? " 

For a while 
Perturbed and animate silence held these two. 
They heard the great sea pant and sigh without 
Like a dream-harried sleeper ; but within 
They were aware of stormy, waking seas 
Whose quick upreaching and indrawing surf 
13 



THE GREAT MAZE 

Each in the other's troubled breathing heard 
Across the stillness of the room. At last 
Beside the window, with hands clasped behind, 
And staring as at some vext battlefield 
Along the dim seashore, he spoke. "At Troy 
I conquered, and I dreamed my days of war 
Were over, and henceforth my troubled ways 
Would be the fruitful and benignant ways 
Of peace. I dreamed of home, this friendly house 
Where you and I were happy as not many 
Are happy in this difficult world. I dreamed 
Of you and of the children, and this folk 
That looks to me for guidance, and my farms 
That need a master's eye ; an end at last 
Of quarrels and the argument of swords, 
Peace for the remnant of my days. Perhaps, 
I was what you denounce me for, a child. 
So be it. I am older now. Each word 
You coldly speak bears years upon its back 
And on my heart unerringly flings down 
Its crushing burden. If my dreams were vain, 
So be it ; if, after the war of swords 
Must follow this more bitter war of souls, 
So be it." 

14 



THE GREAT MAZE 

Suddenly his calm, clear voice 
Broke, and he turned with outstretched, pleading 

hands 
To Clytaemnestra, where with back pressed close 
Against the wall, he heard her pantingly 
Breathe, like a pump that sucks at a dry well. 
"Ah, Clytaemnestra ! There shall be no war. 
See, I surrender, I fling wide my gates. 
Enter ! Do with me what you will. But, ah, 
Let us not fight each other, we who loved 
Freely and deeply, and again might love 
And have glad days." 

A cry sprang from her throat. 
" Ah, listen, listen ! How he talks, the man ! 
He can dream dreams ! After ten lost, dead years, 
He can make phrases still, he can paint pink ! 
Gods, gods ! To stand in Hades with the damned 
And chatter of sweet futures ! Go away. 
Go, Agamemnon ! Oh, you child, you child ! 
You sentimental child!" 

Her anger died 
Hissing in waves of tears. Against the wall 
She stood yet, facing him, with restless hands 
That clutched at the smooth marble, and fierce eyes 
i5 



THE GREAT MAZE 

That glared with foggy, hot, pervasive glow 
Through her ungoverned tears. He went to her, 
And on her shoulders gently laid his hands, 
Whispering, "Clytaemnestra," in low tones 
That had such magic in their tenderness 
She was almost persuaded while he spoke 
That Troy was just a nightmare of an hour 
And this was youth, and there was nothing to fear. 
Her tears ceased. She looked up. Then tremblingly 
She freed herself from his too dangerous touch, 
And with the tiger's silent swiftness crossed 
The shadowy room. Now it was she who stood 
Beside the open window, at her ear 
The fatherly sea uttering wise advice, 
And on her cheek the impetuous, young wind, 
Preaching no sermons, but with friendly hands 
Cooling her burning face. Into the dark 
She sent the hot glow of her desperate gaze. 
The stars, it seemed, gave help. For when she turned 
The glare was sunk to a slow smouldering, 
Scarce visible in the vast black night of her eyes. 
She spoke. Her deep voice quavered and died out. 
Again she spoke, and in her throat again 
Barriers fell, closing the way to words. 
16 



THE GREAT MAZE 

She fought, beat down the barriers, and spoke. 
"You say you dreamed. You say you dreamed of 

rest 
After your arduous toil, of ploughs and rakes 
And other matters distance bathes in charm 
And man's self-pity likes to ponder on 
In mellow twilights. I suppose a hen, 
Dreaming of pretty chicks four long, warm weeks, 
Pities herself and sighs and finds life full 
Of disappointments — when she hatches ducks. 
I am not moved by pathos of that sort. 
True, I am hard. Things that move other folk 
To tears, move me to laughter. There you are. 
If you would keep your pretty daydreams warm 
You must not set them where my boreal blasts 
Will blight their sweet, young lives. You dreamed, 

you say. 
You dreamed of me and of the children. Ah ! 
Which child did you dream most of? You had 

three." 

She heard him catch his breath and let it go 
Slowly, with a reluctant, sighing sound. 
Softly, with venom, she repeated, " Three. 

c 17 



THE GREAT MAZE 

I know about them all. Since you have dreamed 
So much about them, thought and planned so much, 
Helped me so much to make them good and great, 
I should be glad to give you my report. 
Orestes is in Phocis — " 

"Why?" 

"Because 
The air is better there. " 

"What does that mean?" 
She shrugged her shoulders. "He was bundled off 
A week ago without a word to me 
To spend the summer — so Electra said — 
Because the air was better there." 

"The air?" 
"The girl was sullen when she said it." 

"Strange." 
"Yes. Very. But it is her way. At times 
A trying person. This last trick of hers 
Is only one of many. I believe 
She really cares for me ; but she admits 
She has queer fears her brother'll come to harm 
Through me or through iEgisthus. Possibly 
She may insinuate the thing to you. 
Forewarned, forearmed." 
18 



THE GREAT MAZE 

Her voice was clear and cool. 
She might have been discussing kitchen-maids. 
"I have reported on your son, I think- 
Now to the girls. Remember, you had two. 
Electra will be ten soon. You remember ? 
You went to Troy three months before she came. 
You said you would be back in time. You said 
Too many things like that. For I believed you. 
You did not come." 

"I could not come." 

"I know. 
You had to take a city. Ah, and I 
Had only to bring forth a bit of life 
With a red body and an ancient face. 
It cried. Perhaps it did not like the world. 
I would have starved it had it been a boy, 
Or set him in the shade of some lean tree, 
The way the peasant-women do, and let 
The sun creep round to him and shrivel him. 
But since it was a girl I pitied her 
And gave her all I had, against the day 
Of hunger sure to come." She spoke the words 
In musical and mournful monotone 
As though the passions that they whispered of 
19 



THE GREAT MAZE 

Had long been dead, and she were but a mourner 

Hired to bewail an unregretted corpse. 

Then without warning through that sultry mood 

Once more her bitterness flashed white and keen. 

"How do you like my gay report? It seems 

Two children are accounted for, one boy, 

One girl. You had another child ! One more ! " 

Her voice rose. "Did that hurt? Another child ! 

One boy and two — two girls. I can report 

On only one girl, Agamemnon ! " 

"Stop! 
We will not speak of that !" he cried. 

She laughed 
With fierce derision. "No, of course not, no ! 
We have a conscience.' ' 

Fiercely he replied : 
"The gods decreed her death, not I ! The gods ! 
The gods demanded and I had to give. 
My conscience is quite clear." 

A bat flew in 
The open window and flew out again 
With panic-stricken flutter. "Thus it was," 
He cried. " We lay at Aulis. Days and weeks 
We lay, sails limp, becalmed. We prayed for wind. 

20 



THE GREAT MAZE 

We sacrificed. Sheep, bulls. In vain. At last 

We sent old Calchas to the oracle, 

Calchas the seer. When he returned, his face 

Was like a dead man's as he stumbled down 

The lane of tents, and all his body shook 

With terror and fear. I thought that he would die 

Before his rattling throat would yield the words 

The oracle had spoken. What he said — " 

"Iphigeneia — " 

From the garden came 
The odor of white moonflowers opening, 
And at the window a bright firefly danced, 
Fled and returned, fled and returned and fled 
Seaward away, gay parodist of souls. 
"You know the rest. No wind would blow, he 

said, 
Until a child of Agamemnon's line 
Were laid upon the altar-block, and slain." 

"You sent me word Achilles wished to wed 
Iphigeneia. She was fourteen then. 
Young, young to wed, I thought. But in those days 
I trusted you. I sent her. Gods, you lied ! 
You gave her to be slaughtered like a goat, 
21 



THE GREAT MAZE 

Slaughtered that kings might sail on a fool's 

journey." 
She stared to sea. Her bosom rose and fell 
Deeply, with sighings, like the sea's. 

He spoke ; 
And in the firm voice was no lying strain 
Of forced assurance : each clear word rang gold. 
"The gods commanded. I obeyed. The gods 
Are strange but mighty, not for men to judge. 
They see where we are blind. Doubt if you will, 
But I say this, I feel no guilt of blood. 
My conscience is un vexed." 

She stared at him 
A long, slow minute. On his bearded face 
The light of stars shone faintly, where he stood 
Erect and kingly, looming large and grand 
In that strange childlikeness her arrows sped 
Against in vain. She saw each fiery shaft, 
Swift, stern and straight, fly to its mortal mark, 
And marvelled, seeing how it struck, and lo, 
Sprang back and fell, made impotent by some 
Unearthly armor, proof against her skill. 
She gazed at him with cool, straight, thoughtful 

gaze. 

22 



THE GREAT MAZE 

"If only you were bad at heart," she said, 
"I might find words to make your soul ashamed 
Of the bleak, windy ruin you have made. 
But, no. You are not bad. You are a child. 
You play your games and break so many things 
Unchidden, that at last when you destroy 
A priceless vase, you cannot comprehend 
Why there are tears nor wherein lies the wrong. 
If you were bad, if you had devious ways, 
If you were not a good man, with clear eyes, 
Seeing one road and that road white and straight ; 
If you had any shadows in your soul 
For plots to brew in and black hates be born, 
You might suspect that in this world all ways 
Are not straight ways or clear ways, and that souls 
Are like deep woods, dark and mysterious 
Even at noonday. You are blind to men, 
Blind to their powers, their feeblenesses, blind 
To the ten thousand tricks life lightly plays 
With souls and with events. You did not dream 
That when you battered Troy and burnt its towers 
There was another city, not of stone, 
That shook beneath your onslaughts. It withstood 
A long, long while, and then at last it fell. 
23 



THE GREAT MAZE 

The wind is whistling in the ruins now, 

Crying strange things you cannot understand." 

Her voice was steady, cold and grave, and sad 

As is the sea's when it is most serene. 

It made the throat of Agamemnon beat 

And choked the words that struggled like strong 

men 
Entombed, upward, for air and utterance, 
And strove in vain. But Crytaemnestra turned 
Moodily toward the sea her calm, dark eyes, 
That were themselves immeasurable seas 
Peopled with exquisite arrows of white light 
And terrors tentacled ; and spoke once more. 
"Because you are not bad at heart, I hope 
That you will never know what you have done 
To me and to my life. Good night. Go now. 
Go, Agamemnon ! " 

Through the calm, cold voice 
Passion broke headlong. "Go! I tell you, go ! 
I hate you! Go! Oh, gods, gods, make him 

go. 
You have no right here ! Go, you have no right. 
Gods, gods, have pity ! I have borne enough 
These years, these years !" 
24 



THE GREAT MAZE 

Against the window-ledge, 
Half-fallen, she crouched. He strode across the 

room; 
Like an enveloping, enormous cloud 
He came. She moaned as he drew near, and raised 
White, warding hands, tense, rigid, frozen hands, 
That melted to limp softness as he pressed 
The palms together and imprisoned them 
In the large force and ardor of his own. 
She moaned, " Go, Agamemnon !" with faint breath. 
But tenderly, with warm, persuasive strength 
He raised her, drew her toward him. Through her 

limbs 
In terror that was half delight, she felt 
The gradual, glad yielding of tense cords. 
He whispered, " Cly taemnestra ! " and again, 
"Ah, Cly taemnestra ! " and most tenderly 
Stroked the damp hair, murmuring, "Love, my 

love!" 
It seemed to her the sea had suddenly 
Risen and overwhelmed them in the surge 
Of tumbling, gliding and upheaving waves. 
Above the world, between the earth and stars, 
In green waves rolled and on slow combers borne, 
25 



THE GREAT MAZE 

She seemed to hang. He spoke. She heard him 

speak ; 
Yet only as one hears a greater wave 
An instant roar above the monotone 
Of the incessant surf. " Ah, love, look up ! 
My love, my wife, my old, dear love made new !" 
Slowly, long after they were said, the words 
Seemed to emerge like straight ghosts, one by one, 
Out of the dark, and knock upon her brain, 
And through some dusky door ajar, slip in ; 
And she looked up and found his eyes, and gazed 
Long, feeling wrongs burn up like straw, and years 
Like dead grass on a windy hill. She felt, 
One after one, the old, bright fires start up, 
Until her body seemed to her one coal 
Of pure heat and unspotted glow, a star 
For his encircling ether, a deep sea 
For his caressing wind, a drowsy cloud, 
An iridescent, bounding bubble, blown 
Skyward by him. 

She fainted in his arms. 

She felt cold water trickling down her neck, 
And with reluctance painfully upraised 
26 



THE GREAT MAZE 

The iron curtains between sleep and life 

And opened her dark eyes. She saw herself 

Stretched on her couch and at her side, bent low, 

Great Agamemnon, chafing her cold hands. 

She drew her hands away and murmured, "Go !" 

Most piteously always that one word, 

"Go!" like the moan of a raw, desolate wind 

Crying amid bleak ledges and dead trees 

And empty, staring houses. Then at last 

She rose up dizzily, and he too rose 

With burning, questioning eyes. But on his arm 

She laid her flame-like hand. "It is too late," 

She said. "Too late. Too late. Too late. Too 

late." 
Her voice rose, shivered, shook, surprised by sobs, 
Broke, and died out in long-drawn, ebbing moans. 



27 



Ill 

Troubled, bewildered, lonely, sick at heart, 
With bowed head, Agamemnon, king of men, 
Strode down the corridor. The house was mute 
Save for his footsteps. In the banquet-hall 
Silence upon the memory of song 
Made its own banquet ; other revellers 
Were none. He strode across the hall where yet 
The fumes of wine hung, and the Queen's white cat 
In velvet slippers paced the marble floor. 
She hissed at Agamemnon as he passed. 

He crossed the porch. Its ancient pillars loomed 
Gigantic as the shapes of fever-dreams 
Before, beside, behind. It seemed to him 
He swept them from his path and they returned, 
And angrily he swept them from his path, 
Gaining the garden like some hard-fought shore. 

The garden greeted him with music. There 
Leaves rustled very softly ; and so full 
Of cadenced melody the insects filled 
28 



THE GREAT MAZE 

The warm, sweet air, that all the song they made 

Seemed nothing else than singing silence, now 

By some sharp ranter of the cricket-clan, 

Now by some wild and sooty wing in flight, 

Broken an instant. Solemnly the sea 

With her eternal bass accompanied 

Their tender, temporal trebles, and a wind 

At intervals came lightly from the east 

And shuffled all the notes to a new tune 

Of cool, faint magic. 

Agamemnon heard ; 
And on the summit of the gleaming stair 
Stood still, caught by the splendor of the night, 
The fragrance, and the beauty of white stars 
Set in the dark, translucent bowl of heaven, 
The beauty of still tree-tops, and beyond, 
Of a forever restless sea. A glow 
Suffused him and receded ; standing there 
Before that waste of pillars rising up, 
He seemed himself a frozen shaft of stone, 
A pillar, holding up uncertainly 
A structure undermined. He raised his head 
Swiftly, alert, attentive ; on the wind 
He thought he caught a broken snatch of talk, 
29 



THE GREAT MAZE 

Like a twig flying, followed by loose leaves. 
The gust fled and was gone. With puzzled brow, 
Attentive ears and thoughtful, lagging pace, 
Heavily he descended the wide steps. 

Aimlessly and yet not without all aim 
He strode along the garden-paths that wound 
In calculated, labyrinthine coils 
Now shell-like in upon themselves, now out 
In widening circles through that wide, still place 
Under the oleanders and the olives, 
The fig tree and the rose. A dozen times 
He stopped, perplexed and distantly amused 
At the incongruous absurdity 
Of disentangling mazes of this sort 
While deeper labyrinths within the brain 
Asked all he had of wisdom. With bowed head, 
Aimlessly, and yet not without all aim, 
He strode ; for at long intervals the wind 
Brought disconnected particles of talk 
In two strange voices and one voice he knew. 
At last he fixed the thicket whence they came, 
Stood still and raised his head ; then straight across 
The wet lawn strode and found the labyrinth's heart 
30 



THE GREAT MAZE 

With three men in it merged in one gray blur, 
Two strangers and ^Egisthus. 

Motionless 
A long half minute, islanded in seas 
Of honeysuckle fragrance on the wind 
Rising and falling like eternal tides, 
The four men stood. Then in a quiet voice, 
Remote from anger and as cold as swords 
Drawn for a battle, Agamemnon spoke, 
" Dismiss your friends, ^Egisthus." 

To the south, 
Heat-lightning, many-fingered, flared and fell, 
Revealing luridly what three men there 
Sought in the dark to hide ; the fourth saw all, 
And the three cringed with heads each close to each, 
Furtively and by inches drawing back. 
But Agamemnon said, "Dismiss your friends. 
You stay." ^Egisthus whispered, "Go." The two 
Retreated, and were gone. Through the still night 
The sound of bushes trampled told their haste. 

Then, breathing deeply, Agamemnon spoke. 
"You are a crafty man, ^Egisthus. Far 
More crafty in expedients than men 
3i 



THE GREAT MAZE 

Who think less and do more. But there are 

times 
When minds like yours, too used to ways around, 
Fail to discern the entrance to ways through. 
You should have murdered me this afternoon." 

He heard iEgisthus gasp and try to speak — 

"Before I set a foot inside my house, 

Before I saw you or saw — anyone, 

You had your moment. In your place, I think 

I should have taken it, /Egisthus. Ah, 

You think so too, I'm sure. One sees such things 

With painful clearness when it is too late." 

Then suddenly ^Egisthus raised his head 
As at a challenge, sniffed, and leisurely 
Folding his arms, brought his satiric eyes 
At last to meet the eyes that questioned them, 
And to reply through half-shut, heavy lids 
As through a grating that conceals the soul. 
A lazy smile, remotely insolent, 
Curled the full lips. It was a stalwart face, 
Noble of feature, flushed and crowned with curls ; 
And Agamemnon, in that dusky grove 
32 



THE GREAT MAZE 

Lit only by the stars and at the rim 

Of sea and heaven the promise of the moon, 

Wondered why memory should still persist 

In bearing evidence against that face. 

^Egisthus spoke. His voice was soft and clear 

And every syllable a bit of song, 

Carefully made. "You are unjust, absurd. 

You see three men together in the dark, 

And with the easy vanity of kings 

Assume at once they plot to murder you. 

You are grotesque. This is no army camp. 

'Act first and reason after' will not do." 

And then as though he deemed it provident 

To palliate his insolence with mirth, 

He smiled ; and as he smiled, it seemed his face 

Glowed with an overflowing of warm light, 

Save for two discs of jet, white-ringed, that gleamed 

Like cups of molten tar. Those were his eyes. 

Unruffled, Agamemnon watched the smile 
Fade out. "The secret of what might have been 
If in my mind the action and the thought 
Had moved in other order than they moved, 
Should prove in years to come, if such shall be, 
d 33 



THE GREAT MAZE 

A green field for your ruminating mind 

To browse and flourish in. Tell me the plot." 

iEgisthus smiled a slant, satiric smile. 

" Come, uncle. You are getting old. And bald. 

You gained much fame in Troy, and lost some hair. 

They say Aunt Helen is not what she was. 

The climate must be bad." 

"Tell me the plot." 
"The little conference concerned myself, 
Myself alone. Will you believe me ? " 

"No." 
"You will not make me love you very much." 
"Where did you plan to murder me? My bed? 
My bath? Where? When?" 

iEgisthus answered him 
With a low laugh that had no mirth in it. 
But Agamemnon brought his great hands down 
Like talons on his shoulders, holding him 
Rigidly as a buttress holds a wall, 
While with his eyes he scanned the crafty face 
For things more easy to translate than words. 
He cried, "You are not one to murder men 
Of your own will. Someone has sent you !" 
34 



THE GREAT MAZE 

"No!" 
A quick cry broke from Agamemnon's lips. 
"Good! That was truth. Your eye said that was 

truth. 
Goon. Who were those men ? " 

^Egisthus raised 
His restless eyes and made them meet unmoved 
The eyes of Agamemnon. Then he spoke. 
"Phoenician merchants, friends of mine from Sidon. 
They have a ship. They carry goods for me, 
Silk, amber, ivory and precious gems 
From Persian markets. They arrived to-night. 
There lies the laden ship with sails yet raised. 
They came to tell me how in Babylon 
They purchased — " 

Agamemnon loosed his hands 
And with a thrust of undisguised disdain 
Set the man free. " I have no faith in you. 
I think that you are lying." 

"As you will. 
The fact remains whatever plot there is 
Leads not to you, but to an argosy 
At anchor in the bay. As for yourself — 
Why, you're my uncle, and one loves one's uncle." 
35 



THE GREAT MAZE 

He laughed good-humoredly, but there were flaws 

In the soft, calculated laughter, flaws 

Of breathing hampered by a thumping heart 

And faithless knees that would not cease their 

quaking. 
And Agamemnon with his steady eyes 
Watched him and let the laughter lamely die, 
Then like a bolt of lightning spoke. " Enough. 
Let us leave lies a moment and be clear 
Concerning what has been and what shall be 
Between us two, ^Egisthus. By all means 
Let us be clear. After ten years of war 
I come back home, and find a man I know, 
And neither love nor honor, in my house, 
Familiar with my wife, exchanging looks 
Across a crowded banquet-hall with her, 
Smiling when she smiles, troubled at her frown ; 
Triumphant, insolent ; and yet afraid 
To meet the question in a husband's eyes — 
Let us be clear. I find my wife quite changed. 
Women may change in ten years. I grant that. 
Women may change although there be no guilt, 
Grow old, grow ugly, weary, sick. In her 
There is a deeper change, not in the flesh, 

36 



THE GREAT MAZE 

Not in the spirit only. She is caged, 
iEgisthus. There are walls about her, bars !" 

Swiftly the parry of iEgisthus came : 
"True, Agamemnon. She is deeply changed. 
Perhaps she has been dying these ten years. 
You and not I may be the murderer here — 
Who knows ? She loved you, Agamemnon. Ah ! 
Stay where you are ! If you must play the judge, 
You shall be just and hear my argument." 
His voice was bold, but Agamemnon laughed 
A quick, cold laugh, knowing how carefully 
That voice was trained to seem what it was not. 
A savage wish to choke it for all time 
Made his head burn, his ringers twitch. He laughed 
Scornfully as before, instead ; and watched 
Two herons winging straightly out to sea 
With the stars over them, the deep beneath, 
Aching with sudden envy. Sharply then 
He turned and spoke. "Say what you have to 
say." 

^Egisthus looked at him with his own scorn. 
"There are some matters warriors do not see 
Which we, who cravenly ward hearth and farm, 

37 



THE GREAT MAZE 

Learn with some pain. You think not? Ah, I 

know 
What noble Agamemnon thinks of me ! 
Sneer, sneer ! I have my own contempts ! " 

"Take care," 
Said Agamemnon in a quiet voice. 
" These are large issues that we battle over, 
^Egisthus. Let it not be said of us 
That, standing at the very knees of doom, 
We were so far forgetful of the presence 
As to make petty warfare with shrill words 
And empty fulminations." 

Mockingly 
^Egisthus laughed. "Let us be dignified 
By all means, if it seems more proper. Listen. 
When you went off to Troy ten years ago, 
You said that you would stay a month, two, three, 
No more than three." 

"I was mistaken." 



True. 



A month the Queen was happy, I am told. 
Then she began to hope for your return, 
And watch for sails and messengers by sea, 
And messengers by land and beacon-fires — " 
38 



THE GREAT MAZE 

"I had no messengers to spare." 

"Indeed? 
She did not know it. So she always hoped, 
With woman's scorn of probabilities 
And woman's patience and unaltering love." 

"Man, leave the love alone !" 

"Be calm. I know 
Whereof I speak." 

"Goon." 

"Your child was born 
The third month. You had promised to be home. 
You were not home." 

"I sent a man — " 

"Ah, yes. 
You sent two messengers that month. The first 
Demanded tidings, but the other called 
Iphigeneia with a lying lure — " 

"These things are Clytaemnestra's and my own 
To disentangle. I have given you ear 
To hear your story of this death-in-life 
Whereof you call me guilty. You accuse, 
Accuse, and tell me nothing that makes clear 
This dungeoning of one who in old days 
39 



THE GREAT MAZE 

Was free as few are free. What I suspect 
You know. A thousand ringers point at you. 
But they are phantom ringers, phantom fears. 
I cannot make them real or trust in them. 
There is another, trust that fills my being 
And will not let fear in. Tell what you know." 

^Egisthus studied him, amused, yet awed. 

There was some god's bright shield before that 

heart, 
Some god's hand over it. Or could it be 
Great Agamemnon was thick-skinned ? He laughed, 
Not audibly, but in the galleries 
Where undeceptive with himself he strode, 
He laughed at Agamemnon's elephant-hide. 
Submissively, he spoke : "So much I know : 
You fought at Troy and took no count of 

time. 
Days came and went, lit by the flash of swords — 
And other flashes of less wounding arms — 
Months, years, dropped unregarded. No one 

watched 
Their coming and their going with strained eyes. 
But here, across the waters, in your house, 
40 



THE GREAT MAZE 

Was one who lived for nothing but to watch 

The minutes rise in hope and pass in pain. 

To you a day was nothing, but to her 

It was a graveyard where at dead of night 

Dogs congregate and fight and howl." His voice 

Was deeply eloquent. A swift flame ran 

Along its perfect music, warming it ; 

And Agamemnon wondered distantly 

Why something in him turned toward this keen 

knave 
In sudden sympathy. " Go on," he said. 
iEgisthus spoke again, and now the words 
Were soft and swift like birds upon the wind. 
"The hours were years, the days were long lives 

spent 
In learning and re-learning lessons — how 
To hope and be resigned and still to hope, 
To love and long and yet to keep this flesh 
Unfaded for the half-despaired return 
To-night, to-morrow or a thousand nights 
Beyond to-morrow. What those long nights were 
One heart and one heart only knows." 

"True, true," 
Said Agamemnon. 

4i 



THE GREAT MAZE 

"Not one month ; ten years 
Day came in hope and died in misery. 
Ten years of days ascending and descending ! 
Count them, great Agamemnon. Count the hours, 
The minutes, like an endless, thin, white line, 
Stretching across the desert, never still 
In sunlight or in moonlight, from some far 
And cruel quarry to some pyramid 
A frightened pharaoh builds to bury his fear. 
The minutes carry stones upon their backs, 
Great Agamemnon ! Ah, they carry stones 
For man to build his houses with, his tombs, 
His temples — and his cages." On the air 
The eloquent voice a moment seemed to hang, 
Echoing ; then the music of the night 
A long time, undisputed, held that dark 
And fragrant thicket, where two men stood 

mute, 
Each wondering what thoughts were galloping 
Along the highways of the other's mind. 
The sea sent her slow waves against the land 
Uncounted times ; far out a gull went by, 
Calling, and close at hand a cricket cut 
The soft, pervasive hum with rasping chirp. 
42 



THE GREAT MAZE 

But Agamemnon did not hear these things. 
There was an inner music that drowned all 
External sound, as one by one harsh chords 
Amazingly resolved themselves in clear 
And unperplexing harmony. He breathed 
Deeply. His body seemed to throw off chains. 
Fear vanished, hate, distrust, suspicion, all 
That like a fever-dream had lain on him 
Uprose, dissolved. Here was the tangle, cleared. 
How blind, how like the mass of common hearts 
To flare with low suspicions, thrust faith out 
And open doors and windows wide, for fear 
To enter with his demons. Ah, how base, 
How faithless so to harbor love's worst foe 
And give him food and drink and listening ears ! 
Where love is, there can be no jealousy. 
Lust may be jealous, but not love ; for lust 
Is all a seizing and a clasping close 
Of slippery gems ; but love is open hands 
And quiet eyes and self-forgetful dreams. 
Her very love for him had changed his wife, 
Turned her to stone, imprisoned her in deeps 
Where bitterness was gaoler and the hours 
His tireless ministers of torture. Thus 
43 



THE GREAT MAZE 

The years would change a woman. Had he known 
A little better how a woman's heart 
Is intricately fashioned to feel pain, 
And to create out of the lonely dark 
Shapes more malignant and more fierce to fright 
Than any phantom that the Styx rejects, 
For him, Troy might have kept its lovely prize 
And fallen, if it must, of its own shame. 
If he had known ! Indeed, he had not known. 
And Troy was level as the sea, but here 
Was wilder devastation wrought on her 
He would have died defending had he known. 
He watched the east grow silvery with the pale, 
Bright harbingers that ran before the moon ; 
And as he watched, it seemed to him the night 
Was not more filled with wonder and deep calm 
Than his own being, cleared at last of doubts 
And by the winds of understanding cleansed. 
He held the secret of her anger now ; 
The black enigma of that lost, "Too late !" 
That ran like acid burning over him, 
Was solved. Of course, to one remembering 
Those years of slow corrosion from within, 
It must indeed seem bitter raillery 
44 



THE GREAT MAZE 

To speak of hope, or deem that kisses could 

Rekindle the cold embers on the hearth. 

Of course, of course, now it was all quite clear, 

And flying looks meant nothing. How absurd 

Ever to think they could mean anything ! 

^Egisthus was not bad ; somewhat a fool, 

And irritating with his insolence 

And his infernally melodious voice ; 

But never base. His father had been base 

And led him into bypaths in his youth, 

Treason, rebellion ; but all that was past, 

Dead, buried and forgotten. Since those days 

The man had grown, perhaps. He had much 

charm. 
And there was eloquence in his defence 
Of Clytaemnestra's empty, tragic years. 
Yes, more than eloquence — warmth, tenderness, 
And shining wells he had not thought were there. 
He turned to tell him so. 

The man was gone. 



45 



IV 

A nightingale broke into song and trilled 
Her careless bar of world-forgetting love. 
But Agamemnon did not hear that music. 
He staggered like a man struck in the dark 
By thieves, crying, "iEgisthus? Are you there? 
What game is this? ^gisthus !" Far away 
He heard an owl hoot. On his flesh, like snails, 
He seemed to feel the tangible Fear creep. 

Out of that thicket like a bull he broke, 

Roaring and crazed with pain. He snapped the 

boughs 
That struck him in the face ; with savage hands 
He thrust them back and broke them, recklessly 
Stalking through beds and bushes, treading down 
A thousand flowers, and crushing underfoot 
A score of dreams his crafty gardener 
Had made to live and blossom and give odor. 
His being was a hell of hooting tongues. 
This was the end of things, this was the end. 
He need not fear or question any more ; 
46 



THE GREAT MAZE 

He need not hope or struggle ; for all time 

Transcendent certainty had made an end 

Of every torturing perplexity. 

" Ah, Clytaemnestra ! " Through his stormy veins 

The name ran like a runner with a brand, 

Calling to war. He stood still. With his arms 

He shut the sea out from his eyes, he shut 

The garden, the wide world out ; with sick heart 

Crying to memory to recreate 

The unmysterious face of other days. 

Out of the darkness of his soul it came, 

With eyes wide open. 

Gradually now 
The storm subsided in him, in its wake 
Leaving obtrusive wreckage, and below, 
Drags and outgoing currents. Up and down 
The broad, white garden-path that faintly gleamed 
In the amazing light of stars, he strode, 
The huge form feeling pitifully small, 
The wise man baffled, and the lover torn 
By jackals for a loathsome feast. The moon 
Slowly uprose southeastward from the sea, 
A floating blur of silver light. He faced 
Its womanly beauty half defiantly, 
47 



THE GREAT MAZE 

Hands clasped behind and heavy shoulders sunk, 
A black, enormous bulk against the pale 
Shimmer and watery gleam. 

Through the far dark 
He saw a white form run, a slender form 
Run down a distant garden-path, a ghost 
For pallor, a white doe for speed, a sprite 
For springy, shy and wind-blown loveliness. 
Down broad, white steps and down the broad, 

white path 
Whereon he stood, now hesitant, now swift, 
And now at last with slow steps on tiptoe 
And half-choked noises between laughter and gasps, 
Tremblingly it drew near. 

" Daddy!" 

" My girl!" 
She sprang into his arms and clung to him 
With happy words and wriggle of light limbs, 
And dovelike, cooing sounds. He drew her close, 
Welcoming her with kisses and the strength 
Of his great arms about her, and faint words 
Half-said, half-sobbed. She was like dawn to him. 
With his own garment's folds he covered her, 
And held her feet and warmed them, and her hands 
48 



THE GREAT MAZE 

And laid them on his lips. Her loose, black hair 
Blew lightly like a scarf across his face 
And made him dizzy with the scent of it, 
For it was like her mother's. Tenderly 
He took the strands and laid them on her head. 
She seemed a thing unearthly, and almost 
He asked her, not all playfully, what god 
Had sent her from Olympus to this dark 
And vexed house to guide bewildered souls 
Out of the mazes they themselves had drawn. 
He did not ask it lest he puzzle her 
And mar the perfect calm of those large eyes. 
" Young ladies should be tight abed," quoth he, 
"Three hours or more. Since when do we ex- 
plore 
The garden in our nightgown?" She looked up. 
The moon shone on her face. A serious face, 
Thought Agamemnon, a sad, aged face. 
And she was not quite ten years old. She spoke. 
"I saw you from my window — and I thought — 
You were somebody else." There was a hint 
Of fear in her clear voice. "Who else?" he asked. 
"Whom else would my young ladyship pursue 
Down moonlit garden-paths, attired like this?" 
e 49 



THE GREAT MAZE 

She turned away. "^Egisthus," she replied, 
In low, sharp tones. 

He gasped, and on a bench, 
Backed by high roses, fronted by the sea, 
Sat down and drew his burden close. "iEgisthus," 
He whispered. " Why ^Egisthus ? At this hour?" 
He felt her bosom rise and fall again 
And rise and fall before at last she spoke. 
"I am afraid of him." 

"Afraid? Quick! Why?" 
His voice was violent. 

"I was afraid 
That he might hurt you." 

"Why? Quick! Tell me why 
You were afraid. Why should you be afraid ? 
Quick ! Tell me, quick, why should you be afraid ? " 

He saw her eyes fill and grow dark with tears. 
"What have I said?" she asked bewildered. "Ah, 
What have you said?" he cried. "What have you 

said?" 
He gasped. "Nothing." He stroked her heavy 

hair. 
" Forgive me. I am harsh and rough. My life 
5o 



THE GREAT MAZE 

Has been a soldier's life. Such flowers as you 
Should not be trusted to such hands as mine." 
"Why not?" 

"For many reasons. First, because 
Rough hands might break a petal off ; and last, 
Because the hands that touched what these have 

touched 
Do not deserve to come so near to childhood." 

"I'll tell you why I was afraid," she said. 

Gently he laid his hand upon her mouth. 

"Not now," he whispered. "Some day, but not 

now. 
We must be wise. We must be very wise. 
Before we say a word we must be sure 
We know the demons that reside in it, 
And can pronounce the magic formula 
That will bewitch them back into their caves 
When we are done with them." 

"How sad you sound !" 
"Not sad, my heart. But old. Old as those stars. 
And they are older than all living things, 
All houses and all temples and all gods, 
Older than Zeus's father. They rode there 

5i 



THE GREAT MAZE 

Before Deucalion was, or Uranos 

Or Chronos, father of the years. Some day 

I shall be just a little heap of dust, 

And then a few years more, you will be dust, 

And all your children and your children's babes, 

All of them will be dust ; but those white ships 

Will still be sailing nightly, and in worlds 

That have forgotten Agamemnon — yes, 

And even sweet Electra — men will still 

Watch their slow journey through that waveless 

deep, 
And holding close their little girls be glad 
That in this grim, sad world there still are stars." 
His voice died slowly, lingering on the words 
As though the thought of those untroubled orbs 
Brought such warm comfort, such inflowing strength, 
He could not bear to let the silence have it 
And with its many fingers throttle it 
Before his eyes. 

"Why are you shivering?" 
A child voice asked. "Dear Daddy, are you cold? 
It really isn't cold to-night. It's warm. 
Perhaps somebody walked across the place 
Your grave is going to be. That might be it. 
5 2 



THE GREAT MAZE 

Once mother shivered, and I told her that, 

And she said, ' Yes, I'm very sure of it ' — 

Like that. I asked her, ' Where d'you think it is? ' 

She didn't answer for a long, long time. 

And then at last she said, ' My grave is Troy, 

And I am buried there.' Wasn't that queer? 

I wonder what she meant?" 

Her voice died out 
In dreamy contemplation of the heavens, 
Now frosted over by the far-blown breath 
Of storm, pursuing the veiled moon. Her eyes 
Were large and dark as Clytaemnestra's own — 
"When people die, they're buried or they're burned," 
The child went on. "They don't walk any more, 
Except as ghosts. And they don't do that much. 
But mother's often said that she was dead, 
Not as a joke at all, but solemnly 
As though she really wanted me to know 
And was afraid I might not understand. 
I asked ^Egisthus once, but he just laughed 
And told me a long story how a king, 
Admetus was his name, let his wife die, 
And Heracles, just happening along, 
Heard all about it and went down to where 
53 



THE GREAT MAZE 

Dead people go, and fetched her back again. 
And he was Heracles, he said." 

She screamed 
With sudden pain. " Daddy ! You hurt my foot. 
You dug your nails deep in !" 

He made no sound. 
It seemed to him that moment, holding her, 
That all nobility, all life had left 
Of worth and honor found its end in this : 
To keep this child unscarred by strife not hers, 
And uninvaded by his woe her heart. 
He bent low over her and kissed her hair 
Whispering tender, broken words. 

The tears 
Rushed from her eyes as though a dam had broken. 
''Don't, don't!" he gasped. She tried to check 

them then, 
And choked, coughing and writhing in his arms, 
Struggling for breath and pitifully groaning. 
He drew her close and closer, uttering 
Strange, inarticulate and throaty sounds, 
Half human moan and half the blood-choked roar 
Of a death-smitten lion. Lacking words, 
He touched her hair, her brow, her hands, her feet. 
54 



THE GREAT MAZE 

Her sobbing ceased at last. She wiped her tears 
On Agamemnon's crimson cloak-of-kings. 
"I don't know why I cry this way," she said. 
" Do you?" 

Over her startled face, his eyes 
Burned with the savagery of blank despair. 
He spoke, but not to her. His glance went out 
Over the sea into the deeps of night. 
To the dark night he spoke or to his soul, 
Lost in the black upbillowings of far storms 
On the moon-washed horizon ; not to her. 
"I know, I know ! We are betrayed, we two ! 
I did not easily believe. Ah, sweet, 
I did not lightly trust, I did not give 
Jealousy easy entrance to my heart. 
I saw, I heard, and doubted sight and hearing. 
I saw, I heard again, and still I said, 
This is some blemish in yourself, some blur 
On your own vision, in your own hid depths 
Some ugly sediment of falsity, 
Roiled up by life estranged from nobleness 
And women high and true. I could not doubt. 
There were too many memories. You see, 
We married very young, and we were happy. 
55 



THE GREAT MAZE 

Some day, perhaps, when you are grown, some day, 

When love, like dawn uprising from the sea, 

Suffuses all you call the world with light, 

And makes your face a glory that young men 

Will capture kingdoms for, and aged men 

Remember like the guiding words of gods, 

That day, if I am living, you shall hear 

What stuff those memories were builded of, 

And why it took the heavy rams of doubt 

So long to batter them, and what it meant 

To see the structure crumble." 

She looked up. 
Their eyes met, and once more hers tilled with tears. 
"What is it mother did?" she asked. 

He gasped, 
And once again he felt the furies run 
Along his veins and make his body burn 
And his head tingle and go suddenly light 
And float in murky air through an unreal world 
Full of mad, humming things. He pressed her close. 
"Now go to bed. You mustn't wake to-night. 
You must sleep sound all night. Sleep, sleep and 

dream. 
All night. You hear? All night." 
56 



THE GREAT MAZE 

"Why, Daddy?" 

"Why?" 
His voice was hushed and tremulous and mad. 
"Because there is a harpist at the gate 
Who will come in soon and walk down the halls, 
Playing the sad song of the end of things — 
The end of youth, the end of beauty, the end 
Of joy and love and faith. Ah, sweet, sleep sound, 
Lest, through the curtain of faint sleep, you hear 
His blighting music, and before your time, 
Before love comes, before joy comes, or faith, 
Know them for what they are." 

He kissed her brow, 
Her cheeks, her eyes, her hair. She clung to him. 
About his neck she threw her bare, white arms, 
Clasped her white hands, and would not be dis- 
lodged, 
Though he upbraided her with fierce, wild words, 
Battling for freedom from her tenderness. 
She gasped for breath. "You'll have to cut my 

hands. 
I won't let go." 

"I say you shall!" 

"I won't!" 

57 



THE GREAT MAZE 

He struggled, tearing at her wrists. " You shall !" 
"You hurt me so," she moaned, "you hurt me so." 
"Let go!" 

"No, no ! I am afraid for Mother." 

His hands fell and he sobbed. His great frame shook 

As houses shake in storms, and heavily 

He sank down on the bench and stared across 

The pitiless, hard blackness of the sea, 

Sobbing gigantically, with no tears 

To soothe the raw, red anguish. 

Overhead 
Behind uprising vapors, the bright stars 
Were dim now, and the warm night was the moon's, 
Where like a vague and ghostly brig it sailed 
Through troubled seas and made the cloudbank glow. 
Electra laid her cheek against his cheek, 
Uttering sounds that had their deep intent 
Though language knew them not. He caught their 

sense, 
And gradually as a storm subsides 
His sobs went out in silence. Gently then 
He rubbed the hurt hands, murmuring, "Protector ! 
Protector of us both ! Ah, watchful heart, 
58 



THE GREAT MAZE 

Protecting us who called you to this rough 
And troubled world, and made no bower for you 
To bide in even a little span of years, 
Apart from the fierce noise and passion of life. 
Am I betrayed ? Have we betrayed each other, 
Your mother and I ? You are betrayed, not we. 
For we forgot you, fighting for vain things, 
And lavishing such pity on ourselves, 
We had none left for you who needed pity 
And were too young to know it." 

Tenderly 
He pressed the hand that lay upon his shoulder, 
Light as a poplar leaf. "You are betrayed, 
Not she nor I, save as one fault in both 
Betrayed us both. You with your loving heart, 
Your wise mind and your body like a stem 
A lily nods on, you, my flower, my bird, 
You are betrayed. All that asked light in you, 
All that asked love in you and wanted mirth 
And quiet, growing days, all is betrayed." 

She raised her large, dark eyes and gazed at him 
In puzzled wonder. "Sleep, my heart," he said. 
" You shall have love at last, you shall have love." 
59 



THE GREAT MAZE 

She sighed and smiled and closed her eyes, and 

sighed 
As though she were releasing, one by one, 
Troubles and pains and plaguing memories, 
And was not sad to have the sultry air 
Receive them and absorb them and at last 
Whisk them on some quick gust out of her world. 
She squeezed the ringers resting on her hand, 
And then withdrew her hand and let it hang 
Like a slim iris, drooping at her side, 
Ever so faintly whitened by the moon. 
He stroked her hair with slow and steady strokes, 
Watching the face upon his arm with eyes 
That had a hungry, lost forsaken look, 
More like a lion's than a man's, so much 
Of blank, uncomprehending misery 
Shone greenly in them. 

And at last she slept. 
But still he stared at the pale, peaceful face, 
Dumb, save at last for one low, long-drawn moan 
Like a dog's howl when ghosts are in the air. 
And then he rose and very tenderly 
Bore her across the garden, up the steps, 
Across the pillared porch into the house. 
60 



Beside the window, shaken as a ship 

After a gale that has dismasted her, 

Still sobbing softly, Clytaemnestra stood. 

There was no passion in her sobbing now, 

No hate or scorn or anger, only grief, 

Rising and falling in melodious moans 

So regular and so mechanical 

They might have been the meaningless, last sounds 

The body utters when the heart-beats end 

And all the great machinery stands still. 

She watched the slow waves. They were like the 

hours 
The dead know, and she knew, each like to 

each 
Out of the dark deep rising, but to sink 
In the brown sand and leave no trace behind. 
She wondered whether Agamemnon too 
Were standing by some window, sick at heart, 
Watching the waters come and go, and hearing 
Their tragic, foreign music, unappeased, 
Remembering other days. It seemed to her 
61 



THE GREAT MAZE 

She heard the world's heart beat beneath her 

window ; 
And wondered whether he too heard it. Ah, 
What did it say to him ? What was there left 
For any wind or any sea to say 
To her or him, that they two, who had seen 
Love rise in glory and go down in shame, 
Did not already know ? 

She caught her breath. 
What did he know, how much had he divined ? 
He would not easily mistrust. Perhaps, 
There was yet time for those pink dreams of his 
To cover evening with their afterglow ; 
Perhaps they were not utterly a child's 
Unreasoned hope ; perhaps, for hearts grown wise, 
There was a second sweet, diminished glory 
Not utterly unlike the first. She watched 
The moon rise like a luminous, veiled face 
Out of the heavy cloudbank, wondering 
Whether he too were watching it somewhere 
And feeling in his breast this same dull pain 
Of protest against loveliness. Ah, yes ! 
There was a bond as firm as rapture shared, 
And that was common misery. Perhaps, 
62 



THE GREAT MAZE 

Out of the wreckage, he and she might yet 
Hammer and patch together some frail raft 
To carry them, if winds were favoring, 
To some shore not too desolate. Perhaps — 
A step upon the threshold. Then a voice : 
"Where are you, Cly taemnestra ? " 

She cried out. 
It seemed to her that round about her there 
The pillars of the world shook, swayed and fell. 
It was iEgisthus ! 

" Cly taemnestra?" 

"Yes? 
What do you want, what do you want of me ? 
Do not come near me ! Do you hear ? I say, 
Stay where you are ! What do you want?" 

"He knows." 
She drew her breath in with a ghastly sound 
Like a death-rattle. Agamemnon knew. 
This was the end of pink dreams. What remained 
Was of another color not so fair. 
She heard ^Egisthus panting noisily. 
The man was frightened. What a joke, a joke, 
That she, a queen, she, Clytaemnestra, she 
With all her splendor, beauty, vision, power, 

63 



THE GREAT MAZE 

She should be subject to a coward, whose hand 
Even though it trembled could shake down a world ! 
So to be mastered by one's own creation ! 

She looked at him. The lamp had long gone out. 
But from the southern heaven the clouded moon 
Glowed through thick veils, and showed her lover's 

face. 
Her lover ! Ah, the mockery ! Her lover 
Was out there somewhere in the dark, alone, 
Tearing the memories like teeth diseased 
Savagely from their lodgment, root and blood, 
Not this man, ah, not this man. 

With quick steps 
He crossed the room. She shrank from him. His 

face 
Was wan and nervous, every muscle strained, 
The eyes delirious, the lower lids 
Purple and quivering like summer dusks 
With ceaseless, far heat-lightning. The gay grace, 
The lordliness, the fine Apollo-air, 
The self-regard, the swaggering contempt, 
The pride, the fire — there was no trace of these. 
Here there was only fear and turbulent haste 
64 



THE GREAT MAZE 

Without direction, passion without will, 
Madness without the courage of the mad. 
And Clytcemnestra looked at him, and laughed. 

He clutched her arm. "Why do you laugh like 

that? 
I saw him. And I saw his eyes. He said 
We should have murdered him this afternoon. 
I thought you would stop soon." 

"Did he say that?" 
The laughter ceased indeed. "If he said that, 
Why am I still alive?" 

He bit his lip 
To fight the terror down, and tossed his head 
With something of the old, contemptuous scorn, 
Kindling his cattish eyes. "I told him tales, 
Told him a pretty story of your woes, 
And told it with such eloquence, I swear, 
I half believed myself you were the clean 
And estimable pattern of wronged wives 
That I depicted. Oh, it was well done. 
Some day I'll write it down, if to my wit 
Be added length of days which, thanks to you, 
Seems dubious just now." His voice was hard, 
f 65 



THE GREAT MAZE 

And there were knives in every note of it. 
But Clytaemnestra smiled, not scornfully, 
But as a titan, armed to fight the gods, 
Might smile at pygmies, busy with their swords 
About his ankles, while upon the hills 
He sat and waited for the gods to come. 
A sudden calm was on her like the calm 
Of glacial ice. The light fell on her face, 
And made it look like marble breathed upon 
By some unearthly goddess of disdain, 
So white, so calm, it seemed a sledge might shatter 
The chiselled head and on the fragments yet 
That look of cold, indomitable calm 
Remain to startle men. ^Egisthus watched 
The grandeur grow upon her ; where he stood, 
A shadow amid shadows, pantingly 
Striving to scoff the quiver from his knees, 
He watched that woman of the aimless years, 
This woman he had patted, patronized, 
Sneered at and kissed and made a mistress of, 
Grow into something huge, colossally 
Removed from him who once had been so sure 
He was the titan, she the little fool. 
" What are you waiting for ? " His voice was coarse. 
66 



THE GREAT MAZE 

All the old music, all the arrogant, 
Persuasive eloquence was gone from it. 
"Where is your cloak?" 

" My cloak?" 

"For flight." 

"For flight?" 
She laughed a distant and sardonic laugh. 
"With you?" 

" Of course with me. I have a boat 
Below the garden. Quick. Where is your cloak?" 
"I have forgotten." 

"I will keep you warm !" 
"Whither?" 

"There is an island — " 

"Go to it. 
If there is any island in the seas 
Worth fleeing to, go, find it and be safe. 
I stay." 

"Don't be a fool. The boat is there. 
What do you stay for here but death?" 

She smiled. 
"What do we stay for anywhere but death? 
The question is not where we stay, but how, 
Master or slave." Her voice was very calm 

67 



THE GREAT MAZE 

And very stern. She seemed remote from him — 
A mountain holding converse with the sea, 
Scarcely a woman waiting in her guilt 
For an awakened husband to appear 
And end the comedy. She seemed to him 
Desirable and inaccessible 
As never through the years, a woman grown 
To strange, uplifting godhead by some force 
Of stark will and indomitable pride 
He had not dreamed was there. Deep in his heart 
There was a note that quivered in response 
To grandeur always, when the lewd, vain eyes 
Forgot their lewdness and their vanity 
An instant and let grandeur through ; it shook 
His body as a song will shake a house. 
He seized the limp hand hanging at her side, 
And crushed it to his lips and, holding it, 
Moaned, as the longing quivered suddenly 
Beneath the fear, like new life in a corpse, 
Lighting a thousand fires that blew toward her. 
His eyes were hot and hers were like two coals, 
But not for him. Their heat was not love's heat. 
He tried to draw her to his breast ; in vain. 
She leaned from him and with an iron arm 
68 



THE GREAT MAZE 

Held him apart from her. He cried her name. 
She laughed as steel laughs in a battle. " Go ! 
He will be after you, ^gisthus. Go !" 

He flung her arm aside and for a flash 

Held her against his heart. "Not without you !" 

She struggled free. "I stay, I tell you !" 

Again 
He caught her in his arms. She did not struggle. 
She did not have to struggle. She was ice. 
He felt his kisses freeze upon her lips, 
And one by one the fires within go out 
Before the frigid wind that blew from her. 
He let her sink upon her couch, and strode 
Heavily toward the window, breathing in 
The fresh and open fragrance of the night 
As one emerging from a tomb. She watched 
The black form in the moonlight, and it seemed 
Vaguely to her strained mind that he was part 
Of some long-ended story, living on 
Malignly as the background of bad dreams. 

He turned to her ; with quick, impulsive step 
He strode across the moon's white neutral land 
From his gloom to her gloom. His pale face flashed 

6 9 



THE GREAT MAZE 

An instant startlingly 'twixt dark and dark. 

He cried, "I love you, Clytaemnestra ! Come ! 

We have no time to lose. Love me or not, 

I have enough love in this being of mine 

Forever to suffice us both. Ah, come, 

Where I can guard you, care for you, build towers, 

Houses and gardens for you, make your days 

Beautiful to your ears and to your eyes, 

Until you love them, linger over them, 

And loving them, at last, love him whose love 

Built them upon the waste another made." 

His face was close to hers ; she felt his breath 
Hot on her cheek. Her eyes were wide, and fires 
Were burning in their deeps ; but save for these 
Her face was still white marble, stern and smooth, 
A sculptured face with two live coals for eyes. 
She spoke as one a thousand miles away. 
"You have the undying habit of sweet words. 
They do not move me very much, iEgisthus. 
That may not be their fault. They are good words 
And pleasantly pronounced, and underneath 
Runs the sweet brook-song of a poet's blood. 
I do not wish to hurt you. I believe 
70 



THE GREAT MAZE 

That you would worship me at least a week. 
Go. Phase." 

He looked at her with grieved, bleak eyes 
From which all ugliness, all vanity 
Had by one stroke been swept. It seemed, almost, 
A miracle had given him new eyes, 
Or he had suddenly burst wide the flat, 
Unholy gates, at last revealing there 
The true eyes of the true man. At her feet 
He sank down, not at all with the old grace, 
But like a soldier stricken, and his words 
Flowed as blood flows from wounds beyond the will 
Of him or anyone to staunch or stay. 
"I love you ! Look at me. Say what you want 
About me, hate me, scorn me, scoff at me, 
Despise me, call me all the bitter names 
You always called me in your heart of hearts, 
Maker of phrases, fool, knave, coward ! Oh, 
I know your face, I know each line, each cloud 
That passes over that smooth brow of yours, 
Each shadow, like a wind upon a wave, 
Crossing your cheeks, each wonderful, faint smile, 
The carriage of your head, your lifted chin, 
The falling and the rising of your lids ; 
7i 



THE GREAT MAZE 

I know them all, I know the things they say, 

I know the bitterness, the love, the hate, 

The pity that they utter ; day and night 

I have knelt here and watched them, while you sat 

And let me talk to you, staring to sea, 

Dreaming — of Agamemnon. Oh, I know ! 

I know a thousand things. I know myself. 

You told me in the icy intervals 

Between your kisses what you thought of me. 

And still I loved you. See, I love you now. 

Even while I hear the very blood in you 

Whispering, 'Agamemnon'; even now, 

Even while I see the scorn you have of me 

Melt in Olympian pity ; worse, ah, worse 

Than all the scorn you ever uttered ; now, 

Even now I love you as I never loved you. 

I am not brave or noble. In my veins 

Is no desire for battle. I have eyes, 

And a mad longing to hold beauty once ; 

And a weak will, and that is all of it. 

But what I have and what I am are yours." 

She heard him, and it seemed to her the voice 
Was in the next room, to some other ear 
72 



THE GREAT MAZE 

Pouring the passion, the abasement forth ; 

So alien and irrelevant to all 

That swept like swollen rivers through her being, 

This crouching figure seemed. He raised his head. 

"Why, since you hated me, did you pretend 

That I was something other than a toy 

To pass the years with ? Why did you pretend 

That I was new life to your body, light 

To the gray twilight where your spirit hurried, 

Forsaken, toward the night ? I gave you all, 

But you who gave me what the world calls all 

Gave me the hollowest of love's black lies 

To feed my heart upon. Why?" 

She arose ; 
With one hand raised as though to shield her eyes 
From his accusing passion, she rose up. 
He clutched her garment. " Tell me. Tell me this. 
Was I a tool, was I an instrument, 
Only an instrument of your despair, 
Wreaking its vengeance for the wasted years ? 
Answer me, Clytaemnestra." 

Gravely then 
She gazed into his haggard face. The moon 
Shone on her eyes. He read her answer there, 
73 



THE GREAT MAZE 

And sank back with a strident, bitter laugh 
That died out in a helpless moan, itself 
Dying in a low, whispered, "Be it so. 
But come!" 

She turned. " Go. He will be here soon. 
I never loved you. You are nothing to me. 
You were the drug to make my sick brain cease 
Ravelling and unravelling forever 
A golden yarn. You were the knife I chose 
To cut the living canker from my heart. 
You failed, you failed. You left the canker there. 
You were not even a good tool, ^Egisthus." 
Her voice was hard and cold. She crossed the room, 
And as she went it seemed to him the air 
Was like a sea, and she was like a ship 
Leaving a wake of audible disdain 
To mark her passage. At the window-ledge 
She turned. Against the moon her head loomed 

huge 
In its portentous blackness, and her voice 
Was as a statue's would be, could it speak. 
"The things that I created to my hand 
Shall not have power to drag me down, to drive 
My free, uncaptained soul to that gray hell 
74 



THE GREAT MAZE 

Where basely the acknowledged guilty walk, 

Condemned, forgiven, mocked, distrusted, scorned. 

Not fear or love or you or Agamemnon 

Shall have the power to crush me or deride, 

Condemn me or forgive. I will not bow ; 

I will not be raised up ; I will not drink 

Mercy from any lips. My days are mine. 

And I will keep the government of them. 

Stay if you will, go if you will. I stay. 

I am the Queen. I am not moved. I move.'' 

A slow wave broke against the shadowy shore, 
And hissing died. It seemed to them the last 
The dark sea-deeps were ever to fling forth, 
So long the silence seemed that followed it. 
They waited for the next wave as for day, 
Rigidly staring. Solemnly it broke. 
^Egisthus cried, "Take me for what I am. 
You are my captain now and forever. Use me. 
I stay!" 

With wide eyes, Clytaemnestra stared 
At the white, moon-bathed figure, at her feet 
Crouching with upturned face, and hands to her 
Outstretched. She felt an icy tremor run 
75 



THE GREAT MAZE 

Along her veins and make her flesh congeal. 

It seemed to her, her body was all ice ; 

And every breath of warm, sweet summer air 

That came in through the window with its freight 

Of odors and its faraway, faint tang, 

Was winter-wind, malignant, searching, sharp. 

She let the curtain down. 

And now the sea, 
The blurred stars and the garden and the wind, 
The sea-song and the endless cricket-song, 
All the old, patient voices, all the old, 
Unalienable friends, all were shut out. 
The room was deadly dark. yEgisthus heard 
Her tentative, faint footsteps passing by, 
The rustle of her robe, her broken breathing. 
The room seemed full of green, unearthly glows, 
Dropping from somewhere slowly past his eyes. 
He struggled to his feet. He spoke her name. 
She did not answer, and so heavily 
The darkness of this too familiar room 
Sank with its awful silence on his being, 
He dared not speak again. 

He heard her step, 
Again he heard her garments' murmuring. 

7 6 



THE GREAT MAZE 

He stumbled backwards ; endless distances, 

It seemed to him, he stumbled through black night, 

Upsetting chairs and tables, scattering 

Her powder-boxes and her golden combs, 

Her rings and bands and crowns and necklaces 

And mirrors and bright bowls. The cold, smooth 

wall 
Stopped him at last. He clutched it, faint with 

fright. 
It seemed to him he saw doom drawing near 
Through the enormous blackness, doom in robes 
That whispered in the dark, like little snakes, 
Terrible things if one could understand. 
He saw, or thought he saw, two eyes, like coals, 
And then the face an instant, fading out 
In a succession of green glows that fell 
Slowly to earth. He screamed. For suddenly 
Upon his arms, now piteously outstretched, 
He felt the cold intrusion of a sword. 
He gasped, he moaned, he shrank against the 

marble 
To let the cold thing fall ; and moaned again 
At hands unpitying that held it there, 
And lips he once had kissed that uttered words 
77 



THE GREAT MAZE 

That were themselves swords striking in the dark 
Murderous blows at his bare, shivering soul. 

Shoulder to shoulder, scarcely breathing, cold 

With an unearthly coldness, those two, merged 

In one will, which was Clytaemnestra's, one 

Enveloping resolve to scale the heavens 

And beat the gates of high Olympus in 

And fall immeasurably and be lost, 

But to the end to keep the mastery 

Of her own fate and never to bow down ; 

Those two, made one, waited for sounds like steps 

Along the corridor, while through the gloom 

The minutes crawled like felt but unseen ghosts, 

A long procession with averted eyes. 

And now the wind rose and began to shake 

The window's heavy curtain and to cry, 

And louder now and more insistently 

The waves began to strike against the shore. 

An hour they waited and another hour 

And then another hour ; and now the wind 

Invaded the black chamber, seeking them, 

And cutting them with knives and freezing them, 

And stirring horribly mute things to speech. 

7 8 



THE GREAT MAZE 

A dozen times they heard or thought they heard 
Steps in the corridor ; a dozen times 
yEgisthus felt the ice upon his arm 
And trembled, hearing Clytaemnestra's, "Now!" 
And then, before they knew that he was near 
They heard the hangings rustle down, and knew 
One room enclosed the three of them at last. 

They heard him breathing deeply, in and out, 
And then they heard him knock against a chair, 
Fallen on its side, and heard him set it up, 
And heard him crush a golden powder-box 
Beneath his foot and feel around for it, 
Murmuring something; and then heard him 

grope 
On toward her bed again, beneath his steps 
Crunching her ivory and golden bands, 
And crying, " Clytaemnestra, are you there? 
Are you awake ? What has he done to you ? " 
They heard him sink beside the bed, they heard 
His hands grope over it to find her face, 
They heard him struggle to his feet, they heard 
His choked cry, "Are you dead?" 

^Egisthus twitched, 
79 



THE GREAT MAZE 

But Clytaemnestra held his arm. "Not yet/' 
She whispered. 

Sudden silence fell. No sound 
Stirred the black death that filled the room. The 

wind, 
Even the wind seemed to be listening, 
Afraid to breathe. Then Agamemnon spoke. 
"Where are you? You are somewhere in the room. 
I heard you stirring somewhere. Speak."' 

Again 
^Egisthus quivered, but again the hand 
Held him with icy clutch, and at his ear 
Again the dark moaned, "No, not yet." 

They heard 
A table thrust impulsively aside. 
A Tyrian vase crashed down. "Oh, woman, 

woman ! 
Where are you hiding from me ? Oh, come forth ! 
I have not come to hurt you. Speak to me. 
You are not far. I think I hear your heart, 
You are so near. But it is dark. I broke 
A vase of yours. I break so many things. 
Forgive. You shall have other vases. Ah ! 
I heard the rustling of your garment then. 
80 



THE GREAT MAZE 

Where are you hiding, Cly taemnestra ? Speak. 
I have not come to blame you. I who love you, 
And did you grievous wrong, how should I blame 

you? 
Life is a great maze, Clytaemnestra. You 
And I were lost in it awhile. But look, 
Love is the thread of it, love is the key. 
We shall not walk in mazes any more. 
Speak to me ! Come tome!" 

"Agamemnon !" 
She staggered toward him with wide arms. 

A hand 
Thrust her aside, a thin and icy hand 
Thrust her among her tables and her chairs, 
Her combs and broken vases, thrust her back, 
And gave the breast of Agamemnon not 
A woman, but a sword. 

He cried, he reeled, 
He fell, thrashing, he rose, he fell. The sword 
Shook itself loose and on the marble floor 
Fell clattering. He fought for breath, he choked, 
Trying to speak, and then reproachfully 
He moaned her name, and then, "Why?" And 

again, 

g 81 



THE GREAT MAZE 

More faintly, "Why? Why?" On his breath, the 

word 
Hung, tremulously fading. When it died, 
He went with it into the windy night. 

From somewhere in the world there came a cry, 
Then steps and other cries, Electra's voice 
And other voices out of every day, 
Steps hurrying ! 

Across the littered floor 
Blindly, toward where he lay and made no sound 
In the chill blackness, Clytaemnestra drew 
Her bruised and fainting body, reaching out 
Quivering fingers, seeking him, and crying, 
"Where are you, oh, where are you?" in low tones, 
Inhuman as the wind. She lost her way, 
And fell amid the shards of Tyrian glass 
His hand had scattered there, and raised herself 
And struggled on with bleeding body and face, 
Groping through the enormous emptiness 
To find a fallen king. She found a sword ; 
And then she found his hand across the sword, 
His open eyes, his bleeding breast, his feet. 
She moaned, and kissed his feet and kissed his feet. 
82 



THE GREAT MAZE 

iEgisthus staggered wildly to the window 

And tore the curtain down. The moonlight fell 

Whitely on Clytaemnestra where she knelt. 

He stared, gasping, " Why ? — Why? — Why? — " 

A child groped blindly through the hangings. 



83 



THE HEART OF YOUTH 



NOTE 

" The Heart of Youth " was written for the dedication of an 
outdoor theatre at the Hill School, in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, 
and performed for the first ti?ne on the evening offune 6, 191J. 
It was subsequently published in the Outlook, to whose editors 
acknowledgment is due for permission to publish the play here. 

" The Heart of Youth " is fully protected by copyright. All 
acting rights, both professional and amateur, are forbidden with- 
out special permission and the payment of royalty. Application 
for the right of performing the play or reading it in public must 
be made to the atithor, care of the Macmillan Co. Any piracy 
or infringement will be rigidly prosecuted in accordance with the 
penalties provided by the United States Statutes. 



86 



CHARACTERS 

Fra Angelo. 
Rabelin, his companion. 
The Duke. 
Arabis, his daughter. 
Althaea 



her friends. 
Melissa J 

A Physician. 

A Page. 

A Man on Crutches. 

A Monk. 

A Boy. 

Handmaidens. 

Pages. 

Men, Women and Children. 

The Master in Charge 
of the Performance. 



SEQUENCE OF SCENES 

Scene I. A forest. 

Scene II. A public square. 

Scene III. A dark street. 

Scene IV. A room in the palace. 



THE 
HEART OF YOUTH 

PROLOGUE 

(The Master in Charge, without hat, coat or 
waistcoat and with the sleeves of his shirt rolled 
up, appears at back of stage. He is evidently 
very hot and somewhat exhausted and out of 
temper. Even before he appears he may be heard 
calling impatiently to two boys who are quarrelling 
unseen, but distinctly audible, in the gulley be- 
hind the stage.) 

THE MASTER IN CHARGE 

Come, come now ! Stop your jabber. Stop, stop, 

stop! 
D'ye think those pretty girls and their mammas 
Have come to listen to you, jabbering 
Behind the wings? Louis, if you don't quit 
Rough-housing Bill this very minute, I'll — 
What difference if Bill did steal your towel ? 
8 9 



THE HEART OF YOUTH 

Steal George's, Gerald's, anybody's. Oh ! 

If you were only now professionals 

I'd have the fun at least of firing you ! 

But amateurs ! Never again, I swear ! 

If there is anything inside this shirt 

Able to profit by experience, 

I wash my hands of amateurs henceforth. 

Come, play the game. Do, for the love of Mike. 

Pretend it's football — anything but Art, 

And take a brace, so we can start the show. 

Come, now, and stop your nonsense. Up this way. 
(To the audience, as he comes forward mopping his 
brow.) 

They're amateurs. And, worse than that, they're 
boys. 

God knows if there'll be any play to watch. 

04 number of Boys appear at the back and hesi- 
tatingly come forward, one by one, as the Master 
in Charge introduces them.) 

Well, here they come, prepared to make their bow. 

Bow, William. This is William. He's to play 

The saint, the wandering good man. This is 
George. 
(In a whisper.) 

90 



PROLOGUE 

Stand up, for heaven's sake, and be a man. 

He plays the hero-villain, Rabelin. 

You've heard it said, Art is economy. 

Well, we've economized. Like life itself 

We've thrown our good and evil in one pot 

And saved one acting role, creating thus 

A Rabelin too virtuous to hang, 

Too wicked to exalt in other ways, 

Who knows ? — perhaps a man like me — or George. 

Watch him ! His fault is that he tries to heal 

Ere he himself is healed. You know the kind. 

Perhaps you've met him — in the looking-glass. 

Run along, George. Come, Wolcott. This young 

man 
Is our Physician. He looks wise, and talks. 
Herbert's our Cripple, Sheldon is our Page, 
Whose vice is that he sleeps when he should watch, 
A thing some folk are prone to. Here's Cornelius — 
Althaea in the play. Melissa here 
Goes down to glory with the name of Horace. 
Bow, Louis. He's our Duke, straight from Illyria — 
Stern parent of a sixteen-year-old girl, 
Spite of his obviously tender years. 
And here is Gerald, the fair maid herself, 

9 1 



THE HEART OF YOUTH 

As muscular a Princess, take my word, 

As ever bloomed in gardens. Ah, but wait ! 

We'll have her dying soon, and pale as death ; 

And Rabelin with horror in his eyes, 

Crying, "Relent ! Oh, punish me no more — " 

But that's our story. 

{The Boys have one by one edged over to the right 
and disappeared.) 

Well, you've seen our players, 
And laughed at them a bit ; and that was right. 
For they were only boys in paint and wig, 
Meant to be laughed at, boys like other boys, 
Your boys and mine. But once the play begins 
Forego the laughter. They are ours no more. 
The little while you sit upon this slope 
And watch our story like deep waters flow 
Before your eyes, now calm, now full of storm, 
They are not of this world. A little while 
They put their souls to sleep, and lend to ghosts 
From other worlds the bodies that are theirs. 
They do not act, they are the Saint, the Duke, 
The hero-villain, the fair, fragile maid, 
Real for the moment of our pageantry 
As love and faith and God's hand in the dark — 
92 



PROLOGUE 

Spirits made flesh, not boys, but visions ! Ah ! 
Not boys, but dreams ; not words, but Truth ; not 

man, 
But something mightier, commanding man, 
Alone can fitly dedicate this stage, 
This church — where not in unctuous brocade 
Prinked and emblazoned for the sight of heaven, 
But nakedly in combat, stripped of sham, 
Man talks with God. Let spirits dedicate 
What is the spirit's ! In the name of Truth ! 

(With an emphatic gesture.) 
Now let the curtain rise ! 

{He turns as though to leave the stage, hesitates and 
turns again to the audience.) 
You smile. The curtain ? Let the curtain rise ? 
Who speaks of curtains in this open dell 
Of cool, green turf and unperturbed waters ? 
What curtain is there here to rise or fall ? 
Ah, there are hundreds ! On your eyes they lie — 
The curtains which the busy weaving men, 
We call the years, have woven of your thoughts. 
You said that thoughts were nothing. What a web 
Have now the weavers made of that thin silk 
The spider-brain spun of the love of things 

93 



THE HEART OF YOUTH 

The eye could see, the ear could hear, the hand 
Could finger, squeeze and claw. Ah, what a web 
Of gray, inconsequential-seeming threads ! 
The modish thoughts, the meat-and- money 

thoughts — 
In webs, in webs, in iron curtains, proof 
Against whatever fires of poesy 
Burn in white aspirations from our lines, 
They hang between us and your inner eyes, 
Those better eyes, the pure eyes of the soul. 

Lift up the curtain ! For an hour lift up 
The veil that holds you prisoners in this world 
Of coins and wires and motor-horns, this world 
Of figures and of men who trust in facts, 
This pitiable, hypocritic world 
Where men with blinkered eyes and hobbled feet 
Grope down a narrow gorge and call it life. 
Lift up the curtain ! Gaze upon our world. 
Look ! Are there cedars here, a fence beyond, 
A pond, a football field, an ugly mass 
Of huddled roofs behind that poplar-row ? 
Lift up the curtain ! We are in a wood 
Above a city in Illyria. 

94 



PROLOGUE 

The time is twilight. From the hills, the Saint 
Comes with his young disciple ; in the town 
The people wait. Hush ! You can hear the bell 
Calling their hope across the golden eve. 
The dusk is full of peace. You would not dream 
That in the town a Princess perishes 
For love of God, and on these hills, a boy- 
Struts gaily toward disaster. Look, what heights? 
What deeps, break on your eyes, what heavens, what 

hells 
In the small orbit of the heart of youth ? 
Lift up the curtain ! Let the play begin. 



95 



SCENE I 

A Forest 

{From the right enter Fra Angelo, a tall friar in a 
white cowl. He is accompanied by Rabelin, a 
boy of seventeen in mediceval garb.) 

FRA ANGELO 

Look, Rabelin. Our journey nears its end. 

There lies the city, slumbering in the dusk. 

So beautiful it is, so calm, so mute, 

So open to God's gaze, you would not guess 

How the bees hum and labor in the hive 

And love and kill and die. So many roofs, 

And under each the struggle and the pain ; 

Youth reaching out, and old age falling back ; 

Youth, hoping ; age, remembering ; each at strife 

With earth and heaven, scarce knowing why he 

strives. 
So many roofs, so many tragedies 

9 6 



SCENE I 

Of unfulfilled existences. 

The sun 
Plays with gay magic on the fretted dome. 
Look, with what reckless generosity 
He strews his gems. That flash was from a pan 
In some poor drudge's hand ; that running light 
Broke from a sudden ripple on the stream, 
Raised by the first puff of the evening breeze. 
How soft the night falls on those far, dark hills. 
Like an inaudible, blue wave it breaks 
Along the horizon's edge. The valley mists 
Rise up like foam. Wait. Soon upon the deep 
The white sails shall appear, the silver sails 
That carry cargoes through sidereal seas 
For the immortal venturers of heaven. 
I shall be glad to see the stars again. 

RABELIN 

You are a strange man when the stars come out. 
I know you while the sun shines. Now and then 
I almost dare to laugh at you as though 
You were a human being like myself. 
But when the stars come out, you make me think 
Of mountains and enormous ghosts that tower 
97 



THE HEART OF YOUTH 

To heaven and make me shiver and feel small. 
I don't much like to think of things like that. 

FRA ANGELO 

Are you afraid of me? 

RABELIN 

Not now. You have 
A dear and human way with you by day, 
A way of being near. I never thought 
A good man could be such a friend. I'm sure 
You're pleasanter than ordinary saints. 
And yet, at twilight, when the stars come out, 
You frighten me. You seem so far away. 

FRA ANGELO 

The stars are friends of mine. 

RABELIN 

Yes, that's the joke. 
You're human, but you have such queer ideas. 
If you were only now like other men, 
Why, with your reputation as a saint, 
Your holiness, and that odd gift of yours 
Of making sick men well and bad men good — 
Heaven knows what eminence you might attain. 

9 8 



SCENE I 

You ought to be the Pope, you might be King ; 
If you would do as much as lift your hand, 
You could be richer than a duke, with gold 
And jewelry and robes of scarlet silk . 

FRA ANGELO 

Gold must have guardians, jewels must have locks, 
Clothes must have roofs to shield them from the 

weather. 
Such things are nothing if they are not all. 
It is a matter of the eyes ; and mine 
See heaven's gold and have no taste for earth's. 

RABELTN 

You are a holy man and I am not. 

There lies the trouble. You don't care a rap 

For gems and gold and scarlet things to wear. 

I do, like every gentleman of taste. 

I think I must have noble blood somewhere, 

For I have feelings for life's higher things 

That as a rule only a noble has, 

Fine linen and such things. You wear a cowl 

And under that a rope and that is all. 

99 



THE HEART OF YOUTH 

You think that's saintly. Well, I think it's just 
A little narrow, I might almost say 
A little cowardly, as though you feared 
That your religion might not stand the strain 
Of silk on Sundays. 

FRA ANGELO 

Something might be said 
About the cowardice that hides in cowls. 
But I prefer a cowl. 

RABELIN 

That's your affair. 
I'll not dispute you have a free man's right 
To your own kind of clothes. But I assert 
You have no right to keep from me the means 
To clothe myself in silks if I so wish. 

FRA ANGELO 

What have I done ? 

RABELIN 

What have you done ? Last night 
You healed a rich man's son, you raised him up 
When he was gone almost, and when they brought 
ioo 



SCENE I 

Gold to repay you, you rejected it ! 
That was your business, that was your affair 
If you refused the wherewithal to give 
Drink to the orphan, to the widow meat. 
Oh, I'll admit that was your own affair, 
Though I've my notions of its saintliness ! — 
But when they turned and offered me their gold, 
Saying, " Your friend is young, he wears no cowl, 
Some day perhaps he may have need of gold," 
And you refused to let me take their gift, 
That, I declare, was holiness gone mad. 

FRA ANGELO 

A week ago your thoughts were all of heaven. 
Why are they turned so suddenly to earth ? 

RABELIN 

Oh, I am sick of this religious buncome. 

I think and think and don't get anywhere. 

Things you can see, things you can touch and smell, 

Those are the things I seem to want — real things, 

Substantial things that you can weigh. God knows 

If there is any God. I'm sure I don't. 

But there is money and there's power and place — 

IOI 



THE HEART OF YOUTH 
FRA ANGELO 

If you wish money there are many ways 

That money may be sought. Why do you, then, 

Follow a wandering madman through the hills ? 

RABELIN 

Heaven knows. 

FRA ANGELO 

I never urged you, Rabelin. 
You came to me. I did not ask you whence, 
Nor why you came. 

RABELIN 

I came from dice and taverns. 

FRA ANGELO 

So wicked and so young ! 

RABELIN 

Oh, laugh ! You think 
I'm just a boy. You never would believe 
How bad I was. 

FRA ANGELO 

(Warmly.) 

No. 

I02 



SCENE I 



RABELIN 



Well, then, don't blame me 
When you discover what a devil I am. 
Sometimes I fear I'll be an atheist. 

FRA ANGELO 

But you were such a fire of faith. 

RABELIN 

I know. 
I swallowed everything, hook, bait and sinker. 
Now half of it seems childish, and the rest 
Old women's talk, not meant for grown-up men. 

FRA ANGELO 

Perhaps when you have lived — 

RABELIN 

But I have lived. 
You don't quite realize what I've been through. 
I've passed through terrible temptations. I'm 
Not like those other boys who don't know life. 
I'm different. I've seen things. Oh, I have. 
I wouldn't for the world upset your faith — 
103 



THE HEART OF YOUTH 
FRA ANGELO 

I understand. 

RABELIN 

But my experience 
Has taught me that there isn't much worth while 
Except success. When you've got that, you've 

got it. 
It isn't like this moonshine talk of God 
You can't clutch anywhere but like an eel 
It slips between your fingers. By and by, 
When I begin to heal — 

FRA ANGELO 

To heal? 

RABELIN 

Why not? 

FRA ANGELO 

I must be getting old, and my mind weak. 
I can't quite seem to follow your swift flights. 
Did you say — heal ? 

RABELIN 

Why, yes. 
104 



SCENE I 
FRA ANGELO 

But you're a sceptic ! 

RABELIN 

Of course. But then the sick folk won't know that. 
I've watched you heal. It doesn't seem so hard. 
Some day I'll learn the trick, and when I do, 
You bet, I'll not refuse a rich man's gift. 

FRA ANGELO 

So? So? A trick? 

RABELIN 

Well, something like a trick. 

FRA ANGELO 

Is that the reason why you cleave and cling, 

To learn my trick ? A trick, a juggler's trick ! — 

And turn it into goblets and fine linen ? 

RABELIN 

I've made you angry. 

FRA ANGELO 

Yes, you strike at God 
When you strike at His work. 

105 



THE HEART OF YOUTH 
RABELIN 

It's your work. 

FRA ANGELO 

No. 

RABELIN 

Well, I suppose you're through with me for good. 
I'm sorry and — I swear — I meant no harm. 
I've followed you because I cannot help 
But follow. There is something in your eyes. 
I love you, and I follow. That is all. 

FRA ANGELO 

Give me your hand. I love you, Rabelin. 

RABELLN 

You were young once. You know the fires that 

burn 
Inside a fellow. Oh, I can't explain. 
I hate myself, and everything, but you, 
And somehow, you're the one of all the world 
I'm meanest to. I don't know what I want. 
I think I want to do something, to fight, 
Or go to sea, or be a missionary, 
1 06 



SCENE I 

Or go about the country, healing folk 
Like you. Sometimes I want to die. 

FRA ANGELO 

Not yet, my brother. God has quite enough 
Boys of your age to manage up in heaven, 
And earth may find some labor for you yet. 

RABELIN 

You're making fun of me again ! 

FRA ANGELO 

Of course. 
My love were less the deep love that it is 
If it were love unmixed with laughter. 

RABELIN 

(Almost tearful.) 

Well, 

I won't be laughed at, teased and patronized. 

It may be sinful, but I'm not a saint, 

And don't pretend to be, and I'm not meek, 

Nor humble. Not a bit of it. I'm proud. 

Some day or other we are bound to break. 

It might as well be now. 

107 



THE HEART OF YOUTH 



FRA ANGELO 



Why, yes. Why, yes. 
Freely you came and you shall freely go. 
Give me your hand. 

(Rabelin, with his back turned toward him, makes 
no move to accept the proffered hand.) 

You won't? Why, then, good by. 
I'm very sure that we shall meet again. 
(He goes out, centre back.) 

RABELIN 

(Tossing his head defiantly.) 
Oh, for a chance to show what I can do ! 
Anything ! Just to show him. Anything ! 
If only some one'd fall into a river 
While I was near, or there would come a war, 
I'd make him swallow humble pie, I would ! 

(He goes out, whistling desperately.) 



108 



SCENE II 

A Public Square in the Town 

(A choir is heard chanting of stage. Enter the 
Page, left.) 

PAGE 

{Yawning and stretching.) 
"Watch and be ready," said His Nibs the Duke. 
"Run, Theobald, and fetch the holy man. 
He may come soon. He may not come till 

night. 
Watch and be ready." That's all very well. 
I've watched for seven blank and weary hours. 
I don't believe there is a holy man. 
And even if there is, it's ten to one 
He'll somehow circumnavigate this burg. 
All the excitements do. I'm going to sleep. 
Cathedral steps don't make the softest bed. 
But it's a hard stone that'll keep my brain 
Working against my will. That holy man ! 
Pshaw ! probably he'll never come at all, 
Or if he does — well, I'll wake up in time. 
Good night, proud world. 

109 



THE HEART OF YOUTH 

{He settles himself comfortably and drops to sleep. 
Again the choir may be faintly heard. From the 
left, enters a Man on Crutches.) 

THE MAN ON CRUTCHES 

I wonder — will he come ? 

{From the right, a Voice is heard calling.) 

VOICE 

Coming ! 

THE MAN ON CRUTCHES 

Oh, where ? Which way ? 

VOICE 

Coming ! 

THE MAN ON CRUTCHES 

Dear God ! 
(A Boy runs in from the right.) 

BOY 

He's here ! He's in the town ! 

THE MAN ON CRUTCHES 

He's here? 

BOY 

I saw 
Him close as I see you. I saw him heal ! 

no 



SCENE II 
THE MAN ON CRUTCHES 

Heal! 

BOY 

Yes. A woman. She was blind. He said — 
{The great Bell of the cathedral close by begins to 
ring with eager, rejoicing strokes.) 

THE MAN ON CRUTCHES 

He's here ! 

{The Page moves restlessly, but settles down again 
into still sounder slumber. From the left and 
rear, Men, Women and Children, among them 
the halt, the lame and the blind, run in, crying 
excitedly to each other.) 

VOICES 

The bell ! He's here ! He's in the town ! 
This way ! Come, this way ! 
You're crowding me ! 
What do I care ? 
He's coming this way. 
I can't breathe ! 
Heal me ! 

He's coming ! He's coming ! He's coming ! 
in 



THE HEART OF YOUTH 
THE MAN ON CRUTCHES 

Oh, wonderful ! 

(Voices, gaining in volume, are heard at right, 
then a throng presses in, shouting.) 

NEW VOICES 

He's here ! 

THE OTHERS 

He's here ! He's here ! 

(Fra Angelo enters. The crowd surges about him 
with shouts. The Cathedral Choir is heard 
again more loudly and dominantly than before.) 

VOICES 

Heal me ! Holy man, heal me ! 

(Rabelin enters right and stands apart from the 
crowd, a little supercilious and bored.) 

fra angelo 

{Gently.) 

Peace, peace, good friends. 

{The crowd parts and Fra Angelo emerges. 
The Man on Crutches, who has kept in the 
background, hobbles up to him.) 
112 



SCENE II 

THE MAN ON CRUTCHES 

{Stretching out his hand.) 
Heal me ! 

FRA ANGELO 

{Gazing tenderly into his eyes.) 
You are healed. 

THE MAN ON CRUTCHES 

{Stares incredulously, stretches his limbs wonder- 
ingly and suddenly lets his crutches fall with a 
cry.) 
Healed ! 

{The cry is taken up by the others who surge about 
Fra Angelo.) 

fra angelo 

Come. Let us rest our hearts in God's good 
house, 

And speak with one another. 

{He goes out left, followed by the hushed and awe- 
struck crowd. Rabelin, startled out of his 
defiant mood by the healing of the cripple, stands 
motionless an instant, pondering.) 

"3 



THE HEART OF YOUTH 
RABELIN 

"You — are — healed." 
Um. That seemed easy. 

PAGE 

(At left, waking.) 

Is it morning yet ? 

RABELIN 

Hello. What's here? 

PAGE 

Don't talk to me like that. 

RABELIN 

Say, who are you ? 

PAGE 

I am the Duke's own page. 
Remember that. 

RABELIN 

Pooh ! What's a duke? I've been 
A saint's companion, and I could be now, 
If I'd been willing to endure his ways. 
But he was — fresh, as teachers sometimes are, 
And, well, I felt I was too old to stand 
That sort of thing even from a holy man. 
114 





SCENE II 




PAGE 


holy man ? 






RABELIN 


(Offhand.) 





Why, yes. They call him that. 
Of course, when you go travelling with a man 
You do see faults. But then, he's good, he's good. 

PAGE 

Say, it's a holy man I'm out to find. 
When is he coming ? 

RABELIN 

Why, he's come and gone. 

PAGE 

(Jumping to his feet.) 
Gone! 

RABELIN 

You're a foolish virgin. 

PAGE 

Where'd he go ? 

RABELIN 

Oh, you can't see him now. He's healing folk. 
There's thousands clamoring to see him now. 

"5 



THE HEART OF YOUTH 

You'll have to wait in line. If things go right 
He may be free to-morrow at this time. 

PAGE 

Oh, help a fellow, won't you? I'll be fired 
If I come back without him. I sure will. 
I've got to see the holy man. 

RABELIN 

What for? 

PAGE 

Well, some one wants him. 

RABELIN 

Who? 

PAGE 

(Oflhand.) 

Oh, just the Duke. 

RABELIN 

{Impressed.) 
The Duke? 

PAGE 

For his sick daughter. 

RABELIN 

{Fascinated.) 

What's her name ? 

116 



SCENE II 

PAGE 

The Princess Arabis. 

RABELIN 

My, what a name ! 
The Princess Arabis — 

PAGE 

She's very sick. 



RABELIN 

She is ? 

PAGE 

And awfully pretty. White and pink 
Like a magnolia flower. And fun to talk to. 



RABELIN 

What did you say her name was ? 

PAGE 

Arabis. 

RABELIN 

That's a sweet-smelling name. 

PAGE 

She's very ill. 

Oh, please persuade the holy man 

117 



THE HEART OF YOUTH 
RABELIN 

Oh, no, 
He's far too busy, and besides a duke 
To him means no more than a beggar. But — 
There might be others who could possibly — 
What is the ailment ? Measles ? 





Worse than that. 


Mumps ? 


RABELIN 
PAGE 




Oh, far worse. 






RABELIN 






Then chicken pox ? 






PAGE 






No. 


Worse, 




RABELIN 




{Dejected.) 






Then I'm afraid the saint had better not 




Attempt to tackle it. 


PAGE 

Oh, he must come ! 
118 





SCENE II 
RABELIN 

What is her ailment ? 

PAGE 

No one seems to know. 
She's drooping, fading, slowly, like a flower 
That's thirsty. 

RABELIN 

(Softly.) 

Arabis ! 

PAGE 

I've heard them say 
It's all because she wants to be a nun, 
And the old Duke won't let her. That's absurd ! 
Who'd droop and pine away to be a nun ? 

RABELIN 

(Pondering.) 
Of course, a thing like that is easier 
To heal than real diseases — mumps or such things. 
It's barely possible the holy man 
Might be persuaded, at a pinch, to come ; 
Since it's not mumps, or something serious, 
But just — 

119 



THE HEART OF YOUTH 

PAGE 
The Duke said he'd pay well ! 

RABELIN 

He did? 

PAGE 

Yes. Heaps and heaps of gold. 

RABELIN 

Oh, wonderful ! 

PAGE 

You bring the holy man and you'll get some. 



(Carelessly.) 


RABELIN 






Oh, that's all right. 


PAGE 

I'll skip. 






(Dreamily.) 
Why, that's a flower 


RABELIN 

's name. 

PAGE 


Sweet Arabis ! 


f 




You'll make him < 


come? 




1 20 







SCENE II 
RABELJN 

{Breathlessly.) 

Yes. 

PAGE 

Good for you. I'll go and tell the Duke. 
{He runs out right.) 

RABELIN 

A Duke ! A Princess ! Princess Arabis ! 

A pining Princess ! Heaps and heaps of gold ! 

It's like a fairy-story. {Pause.) "You — are — 

healed." 
Why, it looks easy. Why not ? Why, perhaps — 
I might — I'm rather bright in other ways — 
Who knows ? Perhaps it's Opportunity 
Banging at my front door. It is ! It is ! 
It's the great chance to show what I can do, 
To show the holy man — ! 

(A Monk enters right, hurrying across the stage. 

Rabelin impetuously stops him.) 
Hold on ! 

MONK 

What's this? 

RABELIN 

Take off your cowl ! 

121 



THE HEART OF YOUTH 

MONK 

My cowl ? 

RABELIN 

Quick ! 

MONK 

Please, sir, but — 

RABELIN 



I want it. 



So do I. 



MONK 
RABELIN 

Quick ! Take it off ! 

MONK 

I've only got a hair-shirt underneath ! 

RABELIN 

I don't care. Quick ! 

(He strips the Monk of his cowl and quickly puts it 
on over his clothes. The Monk, in his brown 
hair-shirt, reaching to his knees, hurries out, right, 
calling, "Help! Robbers!") 
Now, which way to the palace of the Duke? 
(He looks right and left, then runs out, back.) 
122 



SCENE III 
A Dark Street 
(Enter Rabelin, stealthily, rear centre.) 

RABELIN 

That's it. That must be it. Where is the gate ? 
How black and tall and hard and cold and stern 
The walls rise up. There's not a tree, just 

stones. 
Beneath, above, about — a world of stone. 
It makes me shiver. I'm not used to towns. 
I wonder what the holy man would say 
If he could see me now ? It's getting dark. 
How funny shadows act behind one's back ! 
They act alive, but not alive with people. 
I'm not afraid of flesh and blood and bone, 
Robbers and such things, nor of ghosts; but 

these 
Queer shifting shreds that are not ghosts nor men 
Make me all goose-flesh. What was that? Good 

Lord! 
(Fra Angelo enters right.) 
123 



THE HEART OF YOUTH 



FRA ANGELO 



Is that you, Rabelin ? 

(Rabelin cowers, but does not answer.) 

Is that you, brother? 
I missed you and a something in my heart 
Said that you needed me. And so I came. 



RABELIN 



(Softly.) 
I do not need you. 

FRA ANGELO 

Then my heart was wrong. 

RABELIN 

Yes. Very probably. 

FRA ANGELO 

Why do you keep 
Your face so hidden ? Are there tales inscribed 
On the truth-telling tablets of your eyes 
You dare not let me read ? Why do you hide ? 
Are you, a man of seventeen years, afraid ? 

124 



SCENE III 
RABELIN 

{Turning sharply.) 
I'm not afraid ! 

FRA ANGELO 

What errand are you on? 

RABELIN 

What's that to you? 

FRA ANGELO 

Nothing — or everything. 

RABELIN 

Well, nothing then. 

FRA ANGELO 

There's something in your voice 

RABELIN 

What of it? 

FRA ANGELO 

Rabelin, come back. 

RABELIN 

I won't. 

FRA ANGELO 

{Laying his hands on Rabelin's shoulders.) 
What deviltry is on you ? There's a door 
125 



THE HEART OF YOUTH 

Closed in the shadowy passage of your eyes. 
You've slammed a door wherethrough I used to 

pass. 
You've slammed it in my face. Look up at me. 
A wall ! a wall ! No passage for me now. 
What mischief's brewing on the farther side ? 

RABELIN 

What's that to you? 

FRA ANGELO 

I am your friend. 

RABELIN 

My friend ! 
My teacher's what you are and ever will be. 
Because I came to you and asked to learn, 
You've got a notion it's your heaven-sent job 
Forever to look after me, to keep 
My feet safe in the straight-and-narrow, watch 
My very goings-out and comings-in 
As though I was a girl at boarding school 
And you my old-maid chaperone. 

ERA ANGELO 

Dear boy ! 
Look in my eyes. Am I a friend or not? 
126 



SCENE III 
RABELIN 

I tell you, I am sick of being taught 

And led about like a tame elephant. 

I know some things and now I'm going to live. 

Perhaps I'm not the muddle-headed boy 

You think I am, perhaps I am a man, 

Perhaps I've got it in me to do things. 

Let go ! I've got my opportunity, 

And opportunity comes only once ! 

Others have fought and won — at seventeen. 

Why shouldn't I ? Let go ! 

(Fra Angelo drops his hands from Rabelin's 
shoulders.) 

Where is the gate ? 
I'm going to the palace of the Duke ! 

{He runs out, left.) 

ERA ANGELO 

The Duke ! What ! Not — to heal ? 

Youth, youth ! Ah, God ! 
Be merciful to the wild heart of youth. 
{Exit.) 



127 



SCENE IV 

A Room in the Duke's Palace 

(Althaea enters right, tiptoes across stage, and 
stands at extreme left of stage as though listening 
at a door. She gives a sob. Melissa enters, 
also crossing.) 

ALTHAEA 

{Softly,) 

Has the saint come? 

MELISSA 

Not yet. 

ALTH^A 

I scarcely dare 
Go back to her and say he hasn't come. 

MELISSA 

He's in the town. 

ALTHiEA 

I know. I heard the bell. 
I can't see why he doesn't come — The Duke ! 

{The Duke enters right. The Girls curtsey deep.) 
My lord ! 

128 



SCENE IV 
MELISSA 

My lord ! 

DUKE 

{Cheerfully.) 

What news ? 

MELISSA 

No news, my lord. 
She sobs and laughs and speaks of foolish things. 

ALTHAEA 

Oh, yield, my lord, before it is too late. 
It is no sin to want to be a nun 
And vow oneself to heaven. 

DUKE 

You too are young. 
You do not understand such things. A child 
Has whims like this that fade out and are gone. 
I am not wholly selfish. I desire 
To shield her from herself, to be her watchman 
Against the intrusive enemies of youth. 

ALTHAEA 

It's not a whim, my lord. It is a call. 
I know it is a call. To see her face 
Is to be sure it is a call from God. 
129 



THE HEART OF YOUTH 

DUKE 
Spare me these arguments. Call the physician. 

ALTH.EA 

My lord, she's dying ! 

DUKE 

Tush ! Comfort yourself. 
Girls do not die as patly as they faint, 
When lovers or recalcitrant papas 
Demand rebuke. My girl shall have the saint 
She's crying for, to bring the red cheeks back. 
She shall not have her convent. That is final. 
Call the physician. 

ALTHAEA 

{Drawing back.) 

Very good, my lord. 
{Sobbing, she goes out left, followed by Melissa.) 

duke 
Absurd, ingenuous, earnest heart of youth ! 
{Enter the Physician, left.) 

PHYSICIAN 

My lord ! 

130 



SCENE IV 
DUKE 

(Lightly.) 

Well how's our young besieger? 

PHYSICIAN 

Sire? 

DUKE 

What spectres is she threatening me with now ? 
What bugaboos to force a stubborn parent ? 

PHYSICIAN 

No bugaboos, my lord. 

DUKE 

You are too serious. 

PHYSICIAN 

It seems the hour demands it. 

DUKE 

Come, come. Laugh. 
You must not trust her earnestness too much. 
It is a children's ailment. 

PHYSICIAN 

Sire, I fear — 
131 



THE HEART OF YOUTH 

DUKE 
Don't be so serious, man. 

PHYSICIAN 

Ah, God in heaven, 
She's dying ! 

DUKE 

What? 

PHYSICIAN 

I can do nothing more. 

DUKE 

What did you say? 

PHYSICIAN 

She's flickering, like a lamp, 
Burnt out. 

DUKE 

You're a physician, and you say 
This dying is no empty threat of hers? 
She's — 

PHYSICIAN 

She is dying. 

132 



SCENE IV 

DUKE 

Why ! I must be mad. 
This is against all reason ! Men might die 
For faith, conviction, men ! But not young girls 
Of sixteen years. You are absurd ! 

PHYSICIAN 

My lord, 
I would I were. 

DUKE 

I do not understand — 
You say — why, it's absurd ! Youth may be strange 
And from its dewy inexperience weave 
Amazing webs of whim ; but even youth 
Would balk at perpetrating such a travesty 
Of reason and of life. You are all wrong ; 
Or else in league with her to break my will. 
Which is it ? 

PHYSICIAN 

Sire, I say what I have seen. 

DUKE 

I do not understand the heart of youth. 
If she had been the praying kind, a prig, 
Worried about salvation, bigoted, 

133 



THE HEART OF YOUTH 

Mawkish, anaemic, anything except 

The hearty, wholesome tomboy that she was, 

Why, I might understand. A year ago, 

One dusk, she saw a beautiful young nun. 

That's all the stimulus there is. That's all. 

But something opens in her, something shuts, 

And suddenly the devil-boy is gone, 

And she is all dreams, and deep-sparkling eyes, 

Dreams, a long quarter-year ; then, overnight, 

A blaze of faith. I said, she is a child ; 

And laughed. She did not laugh. And I laughed 

more 
To see the grief she did not try to hide 
That I should sin against the Holy Ghost 
By ridiculing what to her was holy. 
I said, this fever will be over soon. 
And now you say she's — dying ? 

PHYSICIAN 

So it seems. 

DUKE 

I did not know that children of her age 
Could feel so deeply. When they laugh, they laugh 
So like the sunlight, so like running water, 
134 



SCENE IV 

So without any backward look toward pain, 
I did not know that when they wept, their woe 
Could tap the same cold, deep, eternal springs 
That feed our older grief. I did not dream 
Her spirit might be stronger than her flesh 
And frown the body's youthful ardor down. 
I grope in darkness. Youth bewilders me. 
I cannot probe it, plumb it, comprehend 
The meanings of the songs and silences 
That shake its lovely temples into dust. 
Dying, you say? 

PHYSICIAN 

(With a helpless gesture.) 

My lord — 

DUKE 

Bring her in here, 
Where she can see what light the day has left 
For a bewildered world. 

PHYSICIAN 

(Withdrawing.) 

I go. 
(He crosses to extreme left.) 

135 



THE HEART OF YOUTH 
DUKE 

Dear heaven! 
What an unmotivated farce is life — 
Unless indeed — Where is the holy man ? 

PHYSICIAN 

(Returning.) 
They're bringing her, my lord. 

DUKE 

Good. You may go. 
(The Physician bows and goes out back.) 
The holy man ! Is he the answer ? Ah! 

(Enter left, Althaea, Melissa, and Four other 
Girls, attendants on the Princess Arabis, bear- 
ing a cot on which Arabis is lying. They set the 
cot down at left centre, forward, and group them- 
selves about it.) 

ARABIS 

(Faintly.) 
It must be very late. 

DUKE 

The sun has set. 

ARABIS 

You promised that the holy man would come. 
136 



SCENE IV 

DUKE 

I sent for him. He was delayed, perhaps, 
And will still come. 

ARABIS 

I fear he will not come. 

DUKE 

I sent a page to meet him. 

ARABIS 

Oh, I fear 
The messenger forgot, or else the word 
He bore from you lacked warmth. If the saint 

knew 
How much I want him he would come, I know. 
There is so much I want to ask of him. 
I think that I could live, if I saw him, 
And he could tell me how to make my way 
Through this most difficult thicket. Why, it 

seemed 
As though all weakness faded like the dark 
At your mere word that he might come. The sun 
Was high then. That was long ago. And now 
The night comes on, and he has not yet come. 
137 



THE HEART OF YOUTH 

I'm hot and very tired. 

You see, if Christ 
Called, and I did not come, and up in heaven 
My mother heard him call, and stood by him 
Waiting for me to answer all night long — 

ALTHAEA 

She's wandering again. 

ARABIS 

{Dreamily.) 

What did you say? 

ALTHjEA 

Sleep, sleep, my Arabis. 

ARABIS 

I can't. You know 
Mother is weeping, for she hasn't heard 
The sound of all sweet sounds she wants to hear. 
And Christ is saying, " Never mind, don't cry, 
She'll answer soon." But mother's half afraid 
I never will — 

DUKE 

Oh, child, you break my heart ! 

13s 



SCENE IV 
ARABIS 

I try to call and try to call, and can't. 
{The Page enters.) 

PAGE 

My lord ! 

DUKE 

He's here ? 

PAGE 

He's in the town, my lord. 

DUKE 

Not here ? 

ALTH^A 

Not here ? 

ARABIS 

{Faintly.) 

Not here ? 

PAGE 

He's on his way. 
I dare say, any minute he'll be here. 

ARABIS 

What did he say ? — 

ALTHAEA 

He's coming, Arabis ! 
139 



THE HEART OF YOUTH 
DUKE 

{To Page.) 
Bring him up quickly when he comes. 
{Exit Page.) 

ALTHAEA 

The saint — 
The holy man — he's coming. 

ARABIS 

{With a long, glad sigh.) 

Oh! 

MELISSA 

Listen ! 

ALTHAEA 

He'll just say, Rise ! And you'll get on your feet. 

MELISSA 

Listen ! It won't be long before you'll hear 
His footsteps now. 

ALTH.EA 

Listen ! Was that a step ? 

MELISSA 

First on the stair, then in the corridor — 

ALTHAEA 

Then at the door — 

140 



SCENE IV 
MELISSA 

And then here in the room ! 

ARABIS 

Yes. And he'll cry, Arise ! 

DUKE 

{Aside.) 

Oh, heart of youth ! 

MELISSA 

And you'll be up on your two feet again. 

ARABIS 

And strong, you think ? 

ALTH^A 

Of course. And with red cheeks. 

MELISSA 

And all the hair you lost will come again 
Just twice as beautiful. It's always so 
In story-books. 

ARABIS 

(Dreamily.) 

I don't care about hair. 
141 



THE HEART OF YOUTH 

ALTHAEA 
Listen ! I heard a knocking at the gate ! 

ARABIS 

I heard it, too ! 

MELISSA 

Listen ! They've drawn the bolt ! 
I heard it grate. 

ALTHAEA 

There ! Did you hear the chain ? 

DUKE 

(Crossing swiftly to back.) 
Steps ! 

MELISSA 

On the stair ! 

ALTH^A 

Louder and louder now ! 

ARABIS 

(Faintly.) 
Steps ! 

MELISSA 

Oh, it's he ! 

142 



SCENE IV 
ALTH^A 

The holy man ! 

ARABIS 

Dear mother, 
Help me to do my share. 

DUKE 

(Softly.) 

Good God, have mercy. 

PAGE 

(Reentering.) 
My lord, the holy man — 

DUKE 

Let him come in. 

ARABIS 

At last ! 

MELISSA 

Now in a minute you'll be well. 
(Rabelin, disguised, enters. The Page goes out. 
The Duke, Althaea and Melissa fall on their 
knees.) 

RABELIN 

( Uncomfortably.) 
Please — please get up. 

143 



THE HEART OF YOUTH 
DUKE 

(Kissing Rabelin's hand as he rises.) 
Father — 

RABELIN 

(Awed.) 

Are you the Duke ? 

DUKE 

I am. 

RABELIN 

You know, you mustn't kiss my hand. 

DUKE 

Forgive. 

RABELIN 

I will. 

ALTH^SA 

(Softly to Melissa.) 

A curious holy man. 

DUKE 

Here is my daughter. 

RABELIN 

(Approaching the cot.) 

Oh! 
144 



SCENE IV 

DUKE 

I think my page 
Told you our sorrow. Yet you seem surprised. 

RABELIN 

(Softly.) 
She's very beautiful. 

DUKE 

Without, within. 
Her body is no fairer than her soul. 

ARABIS 

I wish it were so. 

RABELIN 

(To Duke.) 

Wait outside the door. 

(The Duke retires to the right, Althaea and Me- 
lissa and Attendants to the left.) 

ARABIS 

You're very young. I thought all saints were old. 

RABELIN 

I'm — older — than I look. 

ARABIS 

I'm glad. 
145 



THE HEART OF YOUTH 

RABELIN 

But years 

Don't count in matters of this kind, of course. 

It's what we've learned from worry and the knocks 

Of hard experience that counts, not years. 

You'll understand when you have lived. Of course, 

It's easy to be good, before you know 

The fun of being wicked — 

ARABIS 

(Bewildered.) 

You are strange. 

You say so much that I can't understand. 

RABELIN 

You're young. When you have lived — 

ARABIS 

When I have lived, 
It won't much matter, will it, what is said 
On earth ? For I will understand the words 
The angels speak to one another in heaven, 
And need no lesser understanding. 

RABELIN 

Still, 
Experience — 

146 



SCENE IV 
ARABIS 

Oh, I am sick of words. 
My head burns. Why are you so different 
From what I dreamed ? 

RABELIN 

How — different ? 

ARABIS 

{Staring.) 
He's standing on the crystal wall of heaven 
Telling my mother, "Wait. She will speak soon. 
Listen. Above the roaring of the world 
Can you not hear the voice of Arabis ? " 
I try to speak and can't. Oh, holy man, 
Help me to speak ! 

RABELIN 

She's very sick. 



ARABIS 

Why can't I speak ? 

RABELIN 

{In fear.) 

Suppose — 

147 



Oh, mother! 



THE HEART OF YOUTH 

ARABIS 

{Conscious again.) 

What did you say ? 

RABELIN 

{Relieved.) 
She's clear again ! 

ARABIS 

If I could see your eyes 
I might gain strength. I feel so limp and weak. 
It's always in the eyes God has his seat. 
Perhaps, if I could look into your eyes — 

RABELIN 

{Turning his head away, softly to himself.) 
What have I done ? 

ARABIS 

You will not let me look. 
{She begins to weep softly.) 

RABELIN 

{Kneeling impetuously at her bedside.) 
Don't cry. Forgive me. Oh, don't cry! You 

wrench 
The living heart right out of me. Don't cry. 
Look in my eyes. 

148 



SCENE IV 

ARABIS 

I can't see, for these tears. 

RABELIN 

Oh, please don't cry. 

ARABIS 

You are so different 
From what I hoped and longed for. I was sure 
The holy man who healed folk would heal me. 
I did not wish to live until I heard 
That you were near with healing in your eyes. 
I knew how you would guide my strengthened feet. 
And when I heard you on the stair, I said, 
"One minute more and he will come, and stand 
Beside my bed and lift his hands, and cry, 
Arise! and I will rise, healed." — Such a dream ! 

RABELIN 

(Urgently.) 
Don't be afraid. I — know the way — it's done. 
Of course, you shall be healed. 
(Faintly, as he draws back.) 

Oh, close those eyes ! 
They burn into my conscience ! 
149 



THE HEART OF YOUTH 



ARABIS 

I believe ! 



By God's dear grace, I know I can be healed. 
Oh, I believe, believe, believe. 



RABELIN 

(Aside.) 

Dear God ! 

I'll serve you ever after ! Give me help ! 



ARABIS 

I know I can be healed. 

RABELIN 

(Faintly, apprehensively.) 

Rise. You are healed ! 

ARABIS 

(With a glad cry.) 
Healed ! 

(She tries to raise herself, struggles and falls back, 
struggles upward again, and again falls back.) 
Give me strength ! Oh, give me faith ! 

RABELIN 

(Prayerfully.) 

God ! God ! 

150 



SCENE IV 



ARABIS 



(With a last supreme effort.) 
Mother ! If you could only hear me, hear — 
(She falls back, unconscious.) 

RABELIN 

(Flinging himself on his knees beside her.) 
What is it ? Are you tired ? Are you asleep ? 
What is it ? Speak ! Oh, answer, answer ! Speak ! 
Oh, do not lie so silent and so white! 
Your cheek is cold. Your hand is cold and 

limp. 
Arabis ! princess ! Princess Arabis ! 
Oh, beautiful sweet flower, Arabis ! 
The last tears that she shed are not yet dry 
Upon her cheek. Oh, wake! Why do you 

sleep 
So soundly? Wake. 

(He shakes her gently.) 

Oh, wake ! I beg. Oh, wake ! 
I see my sin ! You've punished me enough, 
Sweet Arabis. Forgive. Relent. Relent ! 
Oh, punish me no more with those closed eyes, 

151 



THE HEART OF YOUTH 

Those cold, limp hands ! She's fainted. 

(Calling.) 

Some one! Help! 
(Enter the Duke, right.) 

DUKE 

What is it? 

RABELIN 

Water ! Quick ! Some one bring water ! 

DUKE 

(Kneeling beside the bed.) 
She's dead ! 

RABELIN 

No, no, not that, not that ! 
(Althaea and Melissa enter left. Althaea brings 
water.) 

ALTHAEA 

Here's water ! 
(They bathe Arabis's face.) 

DUKE 

What have you done ? What evil — 

RABELIN 

No, no, no ! 
Nothing! She lives. She's tired. That's all. 
She sleeps. 

i5 2 



SCENE IV 
ALTHAEA 

I cannot hear her heart beat. 

MELISSA 

Is she dead? 

RABELIN 

No, no ! She shall be healed. She shall rise up. 

(On his knees in pleading prayer.) 
Dear God ! Forgive. Forgive. Make her rise up. 
I did not mean such wickedness. Ah, God, 
I did not mean it. I'll be good ! I swear. 
Humble and good. Oh, this time, save me, God ! 
I thought, I really thought that I could heal. 
If I deceived, oh, I deceived myself 
As well as her. Oh, heal her, God ! I'll pray 
Until you must relent. Oh, you'll not wreck 
Two lives for one impulsive moment. I — 
Just did not understand. I was not bad. 
Just vain and proud. 

DUKE 

(At left, motioning the Handmaidens outside.) 

Bear her into her chamber. 
(The Handmaidens enter.) 

iS3 



THE HEART OF YOUTH 

RABELIN 
Not yet. 

(At the bedside.) 

Sweet Arabis, shake off that slumber. 
You are so beautiful, you must be kind. 
Surely behind your beautiful white face 
Are mercy and relenting. Wake, oh, wake ! 
I did not mean to wrong you. Oh, be merciful ! 
Wake ! Wake ! She does not stir — she's — Oh ! 
she's — look ! — 

(Staggering backwards.) 
Fra Angelo ! Fra Angelo ! Fra Angelo ! 
I need you ! 

DUKE 

(Rigid and cold.) 

Bear the princess to her chamber. 

RABELIN 

(Clutching the Duke's arm.) 
Send for Fra Angelo ! Cry through the streets. 
Send for the holy man. 

DUKE 

Why, what are you? 
154 



SCENE IV 
RABELIN 

(Flinging off his cowl.) 
I am a sham, a fraud, a murderer ! 

DUKE 

(Retreating in horror.) 
Oh, base, base, base ! 

(The Handmaidens surge indignantly toward 
Rabelin.) 

Let no one touch the man. 
There are diseases of the soul in him 
Who cheats in God's name. Go ! I have no sword 
To reach the depths where those diseases root. 
Go ! Let the earth unclose and cover you. 
I will not stain my sword with sulphur. Go ! 
(The Duke goes out, left, followed by Althaea, 
Melissa and the other Handmaidens, bearing 
Arabis.) 

rabelin 
(Stumbling after them.) 
Not all, all base. I swear it. Arabis ! 

(He falls down and remains lying in an attitude of 
lifeless despair. Althaea appears left.) 
155 



THE HEART OF YOUTH 

ALTHAEA 

(Calling.) 
Physician ! Come ! Physician ! Oh, where is he ? 

(She crosses to the back and calls.) 
Page ! Page ! 

(The Page enters back.) 

PAGE 

Yes, lady? 

ALTHAEA 

Run. Fetch the physician. 
(The Page disappears again. Althaea crosses to 
the left and goes out.) 

RABELIN 

(Flinging himself over on his back.) 
What have I done? (Pause.) Oh, God! What 
have I done ? 
(The Physician enters back and swiftly crosses and 
disappears left.) 
Who's that? He's gone. To her, perhaps. To 

her. 
If only I could wash out of my eyes 

156 



SCENE IV 

The look she gave me. Oh, the heights and deeps 
Of that reproach ! It was as though she cried, 
"I wanted strength and you had none to give me. 
I wanted God, and you had only words." 
The sorrow in her eyes. The pain ! 
(Althaea reenters, left.) 



ALTHAEA 

(Calling.) 



(Crossing to back.) 

RABELIN 

(Clutching Althaea's dress.) 
Has she awaked? 

ALTHAEA 



Lights ! 

Lights ! 



(Startled.) 



No. 
Oh! 

Poor boy ! 



Who's there? 

RABELIN 
ALTHAEA 
RABELIN 
ALTHiEA 



Has she awaked ? 



(Exit.) 

157 



THE HEART OF YOUTH 
RABELIN 

Oh, God ! {Pause.) Dear God ! 

I really thought that I could heal. Forgive. 

I did not know that men must heal themselves 

Before they dare stretch out their hands to heal 

The other sick. I know now. Oh, I know ! 

(Pages appear carrying torches that flare and 

flame eerily in the gathering dusk. They cross 

the stage and go out left.) 

Forgive ! See, I am punished. You have whipped 

My spirit, God, my heart, with a barbed whip. 

I'll not be proud again, or vain, or stubborn. 

I'll serve, I'll learn, I'll labor. You shall know — 

(He rises to his feet with a sudden consciousness of 

new strength and resolution.) 

God, you shall know you need teach Rabelin 

His lesson — only once. 

(He stands upright, victorious. Enter, right, Fra 

Angelo.) 

fra angelo 

You called. I came. 

RABELIN 

(Without turning.) 
I knew that you would come. 
JS8 



SCENE IV 
FRA ANGELO 

Why, yes, of course. 
A friend comes when he's called. 

RABELIN 

{Deeply stirred.) 

A friend? 

FRA ANGELO 

{Taking Rabelin's two hands in his and looking 
deep into his eyes.) 

A friend. 
(Rabelin sinks slowly down at Fra Angelo's 
feet. Fra Angelo lays his hands gently on the 
boy's head.) 
If there are any shades in God's deep love 
I do believe His deepest love goes out 
To the tormented, irresponsible, 
Gay, eager, burning, foolish heart of youth. 

(He drops his hands; Rabelin remains motionless. 
Fra Angelo crosses softly to the left and goes out. 
In the distance, the Choir of the Cathedral may 
be heard again chanting. From the left. Pages, 
bearing torches, stumble in, startled.) 
159 



THE HEART OF YOUTH 

A PAGE 
Who — who was that ? 

{The Physician enters, confused.) 

PHYSICIAN 

Who was it ? 

PAGE 

/ don't know. 
{The Duke enters, followed a moment later by 
Althaea and Meltssa and the other Attendants 
all in more or less confusion.) 



DUKE 

Strange ! 

PHYSICIAN 



Do you know him, sire ? 



DUKE 

I could not tell. 



The place was dark. 



PHYSICIAN 

I stood beside the bed. 
He came into the room and looked at me — 
1 60 



SCENE IV 
DUKE 

My tongue was lamed that tried to challenge him. 
His eyes — 

ALTH^A 

His eyes ! 

MELISSA 

His wonderful, deep eyes ! 

PHYSICIAN 

(Awed.) 
Sire, was that — Death ? 

DUKE 

Strange, strange ! But no — not Death ! 

RABELIN 

(With a cry of understanding.) 
The stars are out. That's why he's strange. The 
stars ! 

DUKE 

You ! You here ? 

RABELIN 

Yes — 
161 



THE HEART OF YOUTH 
DUKE 

{To Pages.) 

Seize him. Take him away! 
Take him away before I murder him. 
Take him away — 

ALTH^A 

Look! 

MELISSA 

Heaven ! 

DUKE 

What's that — white thing? 
{The Pages who have laid hands on Rabelin re- 
treat with confused exclamations. The Duke, 
Physician, Althaea, Melissa, Torch-bearers 
and Handmaidens stand huddled in an amazed 
group, in centre stage. Out of the dusk at left 
appears Arabis, looking very slender and white, 
and moves slowly toward Rabelin. He steps 
aside startled. The Others cry out and retreat 
stumblingly before her.) 

162 



SCENE IV 

ARABIS 
Don't run away from me. I'm not a ghost. 

(The Group draws back yet further, in panic.) 
He said, Awake ! and I awoke. He said, 
Arise! and like a new, fresh wind 
Life seemed to fill my sails, and I — came forth. 

DUKE 

God pity me. My child. My poor, dead child ! 

ARABIS 

Don't say such things. I'm really not a ghost. 
Touch me. I am alive ! I'm strong, I'm well ! 

PHYSICIAN 

It is her ghost. 

ALTHAEA 

Poor Arabis ! 

ARABIS 

Oh, dear ! 
Has no one faith enough to think that God 
Could raise a sick girl up ? 

i6 3 



THE HEART OF YOUTH 
RABELIN 

(Who has been watching her, spell-bound with won- 
der and growing ecstasy.) 

Yes. Yes. Yes. 
(He goes toward her with slow, hesitating steps and 
fixed eyes.) 
See. / believe. I knew that you would live. 

(Touching his heart.) 
In here I knew. When God sent me my friend, 
I knew that He forgave, and you would live. 

ARABIS 

(Tenderly.) 
You? Who are you? 

RABELIN 

I did an evil thing. 

ARABIS 

Oh, I remember now. And yet — and yet — 
You do not look as though your heart were base. 
I scarce remember what you did to me. 
I only know, in some black desert, hung 
Between the stars and earth, you gave me pain. 
164 



SCENE IV 

But that is past, and worse things I'd forgive, 

Because you knew that I was not a ghost. 

To think a boy would know more than all these ! 

RABELIN 

(Kneeling before her.) 
Oh, lady, let me serve you. 

ARABIS 

(With childlike eagerness.) 

Why, indeed. 
I'll tell my father. He must make a place 
For you somewhere, so we can talk together 
Of many things I dream of and half see, 
Things you'll be glad to hear about, I know, 
For you have friendly eyes. 

(She chatters on, absorbed. The Others draw 
nearer as they slowly realize that She is actually 
alive.) 

A thousand things ! 
My head's just full of things to talk about. 
I want to know what you think about life 
And God and convents. Do you know, I think 
That one can serve the Lord in other ways 
Than in a nunnery. 

165 



THE HEART OF YOUTH 
DUKE 

Child, it is you ! 

ALTH.EA 

{Touching Arabis timidly.) 
She's real. 

MELISSA 

She's living ! 

ARABIS 

Why, of course, of course! 
But it is strange to be back in the world. 
Where is the holy man ? 

DUKE 

Go. Bring him here. 
{The Physician goes out left.) 

RABELIN 

{To Duke.) 

Forgive me. 

DUKE 

{Giving him his hand.) 

Yes. I do forgive you. 
166 



SCENE IV 



ARABIS 

(Crying sharply.) Oh! 

DUKE 

What is it? Speak. 

ARABIS 

(Mysteriously.) 

He is not in my room. 
I felt a gentle wind blow through my heart. 
He's gone. 

PHYSICIAN 

(Reentering.) 

He is not there. 

DUKE 

Not in the room ? 

ARABIS 

(Softly.) 

There is no door but this ! 

RABELIN 

Not in the room ? 

ALTHAEA 

Not in the room ? 

MELISSA 

Not in the room? 
167 



THE HEART OF YOUTH 

PHYSICIAN 

He's gone. 

DUKE 

(To Physician.) 
The windows there are barred. There's no way out 
But this, but this, no way but through this room ! 
If you say, he's not there — 



ARABIS 

(Awe-struck.) 

Who — was — he ? 



DUKE 

Yes. 



Who — was — he? 



RABELIN 

Why, my friend, of course ! My friend ! 
(Grasping a torch.) 
Come ! Come ! We'll find him ! 

ARABIS 

Take me with you ! 

DUKE 

Lights ! 
(They surge forth with their torches into the night.) 
168 



SCENE IV 
RABELIN 

Come ! (More distantly.) Come ! 

(From afar off, but clearly, like a challenge.) 

Come! 

(Numberless torches appear, following Rabelin up 
the steep incline and out of sight. From a dis- 
tance the cathedral Choir may be heard again, 
singing first softly, then more and more trium- 
phantly, until the swelling music of the hymn 
dominates all other sounds, finally drowning out 
even Rabelin's distant call) 

Come ! Come ! Come ! 

Hymn 

Out of pain and black disaster, 
Hear our voices, mighty Master ! 
Fires of hell rise round and sear us, 
Lord in love and pity, hear us ! 
War and torment roar, assailing, 
Sick with sorrow, earth is wailing. 
Trampled, broken, bleeding, dying, 
Lord, for Thee our hearts are crying ! 
169 



THE HEART OF YOUTH 

Lord, in pride we scorned to heed Thee, 
Boasting, "God, we do not need Thee ! 
We, to whom all earth is given, 
What have we to ask of Heaven ? 
Soaring, delving, warring, slaying, 
What have we to do with praying?" 
Lord, forgive the mad words spoken. 
Lord, behold ! Our pride is broken. 

Lord, with hearts abrased and burning, 
See, Thy beaten sons returning ! 
Blind with smoke and bent with grieving, 
Hungry, tattered — but believing ! 
See, we gather round about Thee, 
Failures, failures, Lord, without Thee ! 
Take us, Lord. These hands, O take them ! 
Breathe upon our souls and wake them. 

Lord, we fell in our defiance. 
Look ! With Thee we stand as giants ! 
Lord, we perished, burning, rending, 
Lord, with Thee is battle's-ending ! 
Lord, with Thee, the darkness dwindles, 
Lord, with Thee, the daylight kindles. 
170 



HYMN 

Lord, we faint without Thee. Feed us ! 
Lord, we fail without Thee. Lead us ! 

Lead us, Lord ! 

Lead us, Lord ! 



Printed in the United States of America. 



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